In this assignment, which I also have used to open my 201 course, I asked students to connect to the theme of the course (language and literacy) in a personal way by completing a literacy narrative. Rather than a general tale of how they learned to read and write, I ask the students to focus in on particular artifacts from their writing life. They have to produce the artifacts and write specifically about them. Though not written in letter form, I consider this assignment as fulfilling the goal of the first prescribed assignment in English 101: to have the students make a personal connection to the theme of the course while working in a less intimidating genre, in this case personal narrative. In 201, I use this assignment for the same reasons, as a way to connect to theme in a familiar, humanities-based genre, but we also go a lot further with rhetorical analysis of the artifacts than we would do in 101.
There is a sample student literacy narrative for this assignment under sample student writing.
Teaching Writing at John Jay College 