ENG 3080J
Essay 1: Literacy and Identity
“I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind-
and to work some of those contradictions out for myself”
-Michel de Montaigne
This essay follows in the tradition of the Montaignian Personal Essay. Montaigne
was a crusty, old, medieval French guy who coined the term “essay” that we use
now to describe short, self-contained non-fiction writing. “Essay” originally meant
“to challenge.” The new kind of writing Montaigne was doing was starting with a
question or a topic and challenging himself to figure out how it related to his
experience. He drew on other sources to use as sounding boards to test out and
develop new perspectives offered in the essay. For Montaigne, an essay was like a
polished pattern of thought that arrived somewhere new on the topic. But,
Montaigne didn’t solely write his essays for himself. He ultimately sought a link
between personal experience, reflection on significance, and the general human
condition. This essay is important because both you and your reader have the
opportunity to discover a new perspective on experience (shared or not).
Our early readings and discussions hinge on the intersection between literacy and
identity, often intertwined with the issue of power. Anzaldua, Tan, X, and Douglass
write about their racial or ethnic identities, literacies and languages, and how those
relationships diminished or enhanced their agency. It’s also clear that different
modes of education relate to our development as literate individuals. The Stanford
Encyclopedia, Freire, and others, offer views on broad educational models that
relate to literacy and power, that we may have experienced in school. In this essay,
you will draw on one or more of the readings and connect the related ideas to
your experiences becoming a literate individual. While this essay will be an
open-ended personal essay, you will be expected to work with the source material
using MLA style.
Your essay should:
Start with a question (the more specific the better). You are taking your
reader on a (polished) train of thought. Use the question that you detail and
develop in the first 1-3 paragraphs to move towards a reflection on an
experience that relates to what we’ve been reading about and talking about
in class.
Focus on some element of your experience in depth – This means, do not
jump around between different experiences or different topics. For example,
rather than tell the story of your experiences in grade school leading up to
