After applying the selection criteria on
the literacy narratives I collected from
the DALN archive,
I decided to use two narratives: "Another
Land, Another Language," written by Dmitry
Varhan, a multilingual writer from
Belarus, and "The Art of Cursive Writing,"
written by John Seo Park, a Korean writer.
Both narratives include the elements of
reflection under examination in this
study. Each writer clearly stated
the literacy goal they wanted to achieve:
learning English for Varhan and
learning cursive writing for Park. Before
they discussed the obstacle they met in
the process of achieving
these goals, they also portrayed their
feelings and thoughts about these
obstacles and the learning process in
general. While Varhan briefly described
the learning process as tedious and his
frustration at the process of learning
English, especially after arriving in the
U.S., Park was pretty elaborate in his
account of his reluctance to learn
cursive writing, a meaningless task for
him while still struggling to learn
English, and how his perception of the
teacher complicated the process even
more. Writing in retrospect, both writers
projected a more positive perception of
the outcome of the whole literacy
journey.
Varhan was appreciative of the
opportunity to learn English at such a
young age, and his steady progress as
time went by. You also came around to
understand that his classmates
outperformed him at some times due to
their more advanced language skills.
Similarly, Park wrote in detail about his
shifting perception of his teacher and
the fresh appreciation of cursive
writing that came along, an appreciation
that changed cursive writing from a
tedious meaningless task to an art of
writing that took effort and dedication.
Throughout their narratives, both Varhan
and Park were proud to highlight their
success and the lesson they had learned
having achieved their literacy goals.
Varhan paid more attention to the new
closeness developed among his
family members as they got together to
learn the new language. He ends his
narrative with what he viewed as big
success when he became a writing tutor
in his high school writing center,
concluding with an explicitly positive
note on how anyone can learn anything if
they put their mind to it. Also, Park
focused on the lesson of persistence and
practice that enabled him to perfect and
appreciate a new skill. After explicitly
listing the lessons he learned, he
concludes his narrative with emphasizing
his new perception of cursive writing. As
I wanted multilingual students to notice
and unpack these elements of reflection
in both narratives, I created these
questions to be the platform for
analyzing and discussing the two
narratives as my tailored instruction or
intervention in the study. The questions
center around these elements of
reflection: goal, obstacle, shifting views
and lesson. While establishing the
identification bonds between students
and the narrative writers.