Open Educational Resources
Document Type
Assignment
Publication Date
2025
Abstract
This assignment asks students to compose a reflective narrative essay examining a significant moment in their language and literacy development. Drawing from literacy studies and linguistic justice frameworks, the assignment positions students' diverse language experiences—including multilingualism, code-switching, and various communication modes—as valuable resources for meaning-making rather than deficits requiring correction. Students select a meaningful personal moment related to language or literacy, develop it through rich sensory detail and narrative techniques, and analyze its broader social significance by connecting individual experience to larger cultural, educational, or societal patterns. The assignment incorporates Universal Design for Learning principles through multiple pathways for success: flexible length options, varied organizational structures, diverse stylistic approaches, and required integration of multimodal elements (images, audio, visual representations, multilingual text, or embedded digital content). Assessment emphasizes rhetorical effectiveness, critical analysis, intentional multimodal integration, and engagement with the writing process rather than adherence to Standard Academic English conventions. This pedagogical approach recognizes that language and literacy practices are always situated within historical, cultural, and institutional contexts, and it provides scaffolding that allows first-year composition students to examine their own experiences while developing college-level analytical and compositional skills across multiple modes of communication.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
CUNY OER Funding
CUNY OER Initiative
Included in
Adult and Continuing Education Commons, Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Liberal Studies Commons, Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons
Comments
“Funding for this OER project was provided by the CUNY OER initiative, coordinated by the Teaching and Learning Center.”
This is an ENG 110 Narrative Essay Assignment Prompt.