Academic Research and Literacy Narratives

About this week

This first week of the course introduces you to the course goals and assignments; it includes an introduction to academic research and joining the academic conversation, and asks you to reflect on your own academic writing abilities in a Literacy Narrative.

Learning Objectives:

• Gain a familiarity with the course site and the course requirements
• Gain an understanding of Module 1 and its focus on academic research
• Reflect on and offer an example of your own writing abilities

Task List:

1. Review the materials in Course Information
2. Consume this week’s required readings and media
3. Read about the first major project of the course: The Research Process
4. Participate in this week’s discussion
5. Complete the first Low-Stakes Assignment (LSA): the personal literacy narrative

Required Readings

Academic Writing

This source also describes and defines academic writing. Additionally, there are also videos embedded within the alphabetic text of this piece—please watch those as well. 

Writing a Literacy Narrative from The Norton Field Guide for Writing

This source will help you prepare for your first Low-Stakes Assignment of this course—due at the end of this week.

Required Media: Academic Writing and Literacy Narratives

These two additional videos will help you acquaint yourself with academic writing and literacy narratives.

Diving Deeper

Some weeks, I’ll suggest some additional resources that you can use to dive more deeply into the topics we’re covering this week. These materials are not required, but you’ll find them useful as you complete your work this week and moving forward.

Chapter one, “Annotating Yourself into Academic Discourse” from A Writer’s Guide to Mindful Reading, Ellen Carillo

This reading is highly recommended. It not only introduces the concept of academic discourse, but it also offers a useful way to engage with academic discourse through the process of annotating academic texts. This will be particularly useful in week 3 when we discuss annotation more deeply!

Academic Writing video from Queen’s College in Ireland

This video provides an excellent overview of academic writing conventions. It is a bit long (15 minutes) but it is worth it, especially if you have any questions about academic writing style.

Review Project 1: The Research Process

Week 1 Discussion

Welcome to the first discussion assignment in the course! While discussions are not formal writing, your comments are public to your classmates. So, please proofread your work carefully before you share it so that your peers and I can focus on your ideas. While the prompt will be different each discussion, the general instructions will be the same:

After you’ve reviewed the week’s materials, head to the current week’s discussion using the Discussion tab. I have provided a prompt for you to guide your comments. Using the comment feature at the bottom of the week’s discussion page, please respond to the prompt by Thursday at 11:59pm. Then read the comments posted by your classmates and respond to at least two of them by Sunday at 11:59pm. Do your best to fully engage with their posts: respond to a specific point they made, offer a suggestion, commiserate, etc. For more information, see the discussion rubric on the Rubrics page. These instructions are also available by clicking on the Discussion tab itself.

LSA 1: Literacy Narrative

LSA-1 (130KB) Download

In this short reflective essay, you will go a little deeper into the question of who you are as a writer. The purpose of this essay is for you to reflect on yourself as a literate person (as a writer and a reader of texts) and to offer your professor a glimpse of this history.

See the assignment sheet, LSA-1, above for the full assignment instructions. Due by Sunday, 11:59pm.