Process Memo

Andie Goniwiecha

WRT 150

Prof. Rinke

2/15/13

Literacy Narrative Process Memo

Literacy Timeline:

As I began the process of creating my literacy narrative by starting with a timeline of my life, I decided to start with my earliest memories of reading with my mom. Although this was an important starting point for my literacy development, it became more apparent as I looked back on my life that music was what really helped me to develop as a literate person. I found that I have had many experiences with music, and it was a bit difficult to get them all down on paper and organized without putting too much or too little detail about them. Something that I found interesting about my development in literacy was just how much music has changed my life and who I am as a person. I could not think of anything else more important in my life, and that really took me by surprise.  The theme and focus throughout my timeline was clearly my development in music. It was not difficult at all to determine this theme, because it has had such a huge impact on my life. In creating this timeline, I realized that I am a very creative person, and that I will always chose music over reading or writing.

 

Literacy Narrative:

When writing my literacy narrative, it was difficult to narrow down my timeline to create a clear story. I had trouble deciding what was best to include in order to effectively describe my literacy development. I decided to briefly describe the most important events throughout my timeline. This included all the different instruments I have had, and how they have affected me in terms of my literacy as a person. As I started putting my narrative together, I decided that it would make the most sense to organize it chronologically. I started with my first memories of getting into music, and ended with what I am doing currently with music. The pre-writing strategy I used was highlighting the main points in my timeline that I wanted to include in my narrative. I did this to help create a structure or outline for writing my narrative. Although my narrative wasn’t fully completed when we did peer reviews, I was able to show my partner the general idea of what I was going to do with it. It was helpful to receive the encouragement from my partner, and made me more confident as I began writing my narrative. After my narrative was completed, I did start planning out my video. It was very different than writing a story because you had to say a lot in a very short period of time with very little text. This was a challenge for me, but I feel that I was successful in telling my story.

 

Animoto Slide Show:

            When creating my slide show, I did find it quite difficult to stay within the time and text limit while still effectively telling my story.  My strategy was to narrow down my narrative to the most important events in my timeline. The images I used in my video acted both as a complement to the text in the slide before, and as a way to provide more detail. I feel that they added a lot to my slide show and made it even more enjoyable and interesting. The pictures I chose were mostly from the web, and were used to help the audience visualize what the text was saying. I did use one picture of me performing on stage with my guitar, and I feel that this picture helped with the credibility of my story. As I looked for a song to use in my slide show, I took into consideration the mood of my story, and also my interests as a person. I ended up choosing a slower-paced song that featured an acoustic guitar playing throughout it. I feel that this song was perfect for my video, considering all of my experiences with my acoustic guitar. As I look back at my video, and the lack of comments, I still really enjoy what I created and feel that it tells my story very well. I would have liked to have more time to include more details about my experiences, but I am happy with the final product.