Literacy Narratives

Scannell: Fairly entertaining visual, though it seemed to drag on a bit near the four minute mark. Being a literacy narrative, there wasn't much in the way of describing a learning process of either reading or writing. Context of the video consisted mostly of the authors parents gloating, and describing how their daughter was naturally efficient in writing.When mentioning Reader Rabbit, the mother briefly mentions how the daughter learned to read, but quickly transitions to how amazing her daughter was. I found the miscued video and audio distracting. I feel that more of a personal input would have made the narrative more effective in that parents would typically always talk highly of their child, and I feel this didn't serve the purpose of the literacy narrative.

Andfull: The visual composition and transitions are used effectively and create a fluid movement throughout this literacy narrative. Though the authors redundancy of saying the title and a short opinion of the book became boring. This video seemed more like a laundry list of books that are for sale rather than a literary narrative. What I found effective was when she went in depth explaining the importance (to her) of the Berenstain Bears books. If she were to apply this method to a few other books, I feel that her narrative would become more enjoyable, insightful, and less redundant. Clarity of book covers was another issue with this narrative, making it look as though it was compiled at the last minute. Having clearer images would clean up and give the narrative a more visually pleasing experience. The overall concept was good, just needed to be more grounded and focus on fewer books rather than the whole library.

Trauman: Though this literacy narrative is done "in the field", the background noise is subtle yet at times is distracting. This approach creates this one-on-one feel with the speaker, which helps the viewer to connect and tune in to what is being said. His story helps to create this visual narrative that creates an interest in what he's saying. Using this back story assist the explanation of his discovery of the power, or in his case magic, of words. Coming at the narrative in this approach, for this literacy narrative, is easy to follow, and clearly explains the authors literary discovery.

Peyton: The visual concept is unique and interesting, though I don't think it was applied or done well. Due to the out of focus text, the texting sequences felt drawn out, almost time filler-ish. The issue he addresses about how texting has affected is writing skills is clearly expressed. He shows examples from english assignments that demonstrate the effects texting has had on his writing. What would tie this together would be to see the effects of is improvement which he stated at the end of the literary narrative. In terms of the texting visual, I found that it would have been more effective if there was some editing done to enhance the clarity. Having the text layer active while he's texting would have been a better approach, rather than after the text is written. Even though the main audience was probably an English class, I felt that not many viewers would know what DLN is when he writes, " I'm Trevor, and this is my DLN." Some minor fixes other than the visuals would be the text block at 49 seconds. It's unclear if he's trying to make a point by stating he didn't capitalize, or use proper punctuation, and actually have none of them done in the text this issue was stated in. Over all this was an original approach to this literary narrative.

Wooten: It's very simplistic, which in the case of the assignment is both good and bad. He has countering arguments which make following the content unbalanced. The flip-flop from general to specific statements is where I find most of the issues with this narrative. I enjoyed the visual story telling, it felt much like an automatic picture book, with a soothing, mellow soundtrack.

Grading Criteria: Fluid and understandable content, is the authors narrative easy to understand. Does/do the visuals correlate with the aural, textural content (within reason). Does the author address an issue and then resolve or explain ways of overcoming the issue. To Be Continued .  .  .