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.