Literacy Lab - First Paper Ideas and Details

1. Visual Description:

• “The hall had no windows; only fluorescent lighting illuminated the large space” (Lydia’s Story 128)
• “..the whole street looked like a river..” (Lydia’s Story 129)
• “..and the water pressure was so strong that water spurted out of the kitchen sink like a fountain.” (Lydia’s Story 130)

2. Dialog:

• “Writing! Yeah, right! How did I manage to fail writing, and by a half point, no less? I thought to myself in disbelief.” (Proficiency 1)
• “..and even went to my English teacher, Mrs.Brown , and asked, “How can I get A’s in all my English classes but fail the writing [art of the proficiency test twice?” She couldn't answer my question.” (Proficiency 1)

3. Sensory Descriptions:

• “The cackle of a television set was the only sound.” (Lydia’s Story 128)
• “..we were struck by the chemical odor of a cleaning solution it seemed toxic.” (Lydia’s Story 128)
• “Her tongue became dry and her lips were cracked..” (Lydia’s Story 130)

4. Brainstorm Ideas:

• Failing the Standardized Writing test in 10th grade, passed when taken again
• Magic Treehouse was a book that captured my attention as a child and was a high point my reading
• Third grade writing what we want to be when grow up
• reading becoming not interesting as i grew up.
• reading wasn’t fun anymore once we started AR reading

5. Purpose: to share a memory with others

6. Audience: others might share a similar experience

7. Stance: this changed reading from fun to competitive

8. Media/Design: posted to my blog

9. What do you see? computer with another kid, points on the screen

10. What do you hear? kids talking. kids playing outside. computer noise

11. What do you smell? nothing…. maybe some snacks or books

12. How and what do you feel? I feel discouraged, I didn’t do as well as another student.

13. What do you taste? nothing… maybe a faint taste of a pretzel and hummus a snack i had a lot

14. Describe each person: myself, a teacher who encouraged us to do AR, another kid doing better than myself

15. Recall (or imagine) some characteristic dialogue: another student doing better in reading than me, scored better on an AR quiz than me.

16. Summarize the action: taking AR quizzes on the computers at school, discussing scores and books we read

17. Consider the significance of the narrative: this is the time reading became a competition, even though these points did not count for anything, others doing better than you is discouraging. This is when reading was no longer enjoyable just school.