Generating Ideas for Your Literacy Narrative

There has been some question about how to begin writing your Literacy Narrative. We have read some examples of the genre, but it is hard to begin writing your own narrative. Often, this initial phase of composition is the most difficult. According to Wikipedia, Inventio, one of the five canons of rhetoric, is the method used for the discovery of arguments in Western rhetoric and comes from the Latin word, meaning “invention” or “discovery.” This is the beginning, and systematic search for arguments. As the Literacy Narrative is a personal narrative, to a certain extent, the invention techniques that you can use will draw from memory, and observations that are rooted in the particular experiences of your life.

Here are some ideas that might get you over the panic inspired by the blank page!  

Try Brainstorming

This is a no-brainer way to come up with the main idea for your essay. Remember—this is not the formal paper, but only an exercise to help generate ideas that you can use in your essay.

Here is what you need to do: sit in a quiet place with paper and pen, or computer, and make a list of everything that comes into your head about this topic for as long as you can. Free-associate, meaning write down as many ideas as you can, and see what kind of connections come to mind. Write down everything. What is most important in this exercise is that you do not try to evaluate what you write. Remember, no one is looking over your shoulder—no one will see this writing. It is only an exercise. Here are some points it might be helpful to keep in mind:

1. Don’t criticize yourself or even evaluate your ideas as you write them down. Just write down everything that comes to you, as it comes to you. You will have the opportunity to evaluate the merits of each idea later in the writing process.

2. Use your imagination and see where it takes you.

3. Get as many ideas down on paper as you can. They will not all be winners, but eventually you will hit on one or two that you would like to focus on. Usually the further down the list, the better the idea.

4. Combine ideas and build on them to improve and refine a point. This can lead you to more complex ideas about a topic.

Clustering

This method can help you to see the relationships that exist in your thinking between certain words and ideas. This method might be especially helpful for a personal, narrative essay because the clusters develop according to personal associations, experiences and ideas.

1.         Write one word (literacy, bilingualism, reading or writing might be good words to start with) that you think encapsulates the main idea of this literacy narrative on the upper third of a blank piece of paper. Circle this word.
2.     Keep an open mind and simply see what words, phrases and images come to mind. Write these on the paper, making sure that all these words relate (in your own personal way) with the first word that you chose. Draw circles around the new words and phrases. When you slow down, take a look and draw lines to connect what you think goes with what. Don’t overthink the connections or begin to analyze at this stage. Remember, keep it light and fluid. 
3.     See if you can notice a pattern emerge and keep going with it.
4.       If you feel that you are ready to write down the patterns and/or connections that you see taking shape, then take up a pen, or hop on the computer and begin to write.  Again, this writing is an exercise—no one will see this paper. Write without stopping and worry about the mechanics later.

Freewriting

Ideally, this practice comes after brainstorming and clustering. Once you look over your list or cluster diagram, then you can begin to put these connections and ideas into prose. In this method you set down a time or page limit (i.e. fill one page before you can get up or sit and write for 20 minutes without stopping) and keep writing until that requirement has been fulfilled. Write down everything that occurs. Here you should try, as much as possible, to write in complete sentences. Don’t stop writing, and even if you can’t find the words to write, just write something silly. And remember, no one will see this. This exercise will just help you generate ideas, and if, in one page of writing you find only one or two ideas that you think will work for your essay, don’t be discouraged. They will probably, in some way, form the main topic of your paper.  And that will make it much easier for you to begin the actual writing of your first draft.