Since its emergence as a discipline, composition studies has distinguished itself through a focus on literacy and on how it is variously defined, acquired, and assessed. Moreover, literacy narratives---or accounts of individuals' acculturation to language in general and to academic discourse in particular---are repeatedly anthologized in undergraduate composition textbooks as well as referenced in the field's scholarly venues. Yet despite these narratives' extensive pedagogical and professional circulation, compositionists have devoted surprisingly little critical research to the genre. Examining this discrepancy between theoretical attention and practical application, I argue that composition studies' treatment of literacy narratives reveals the discipline's predominant and often problematic attitudes toward literacy, identity, and culture. More importantly, I find that the discipline's treatment of multicultural literacy narratives perpetuates structures of inequity, thereby contradicting and impeding its mission of inclusivity. Through my reframing and revaluing of the genre, I hope to contribute a more comprehensive understanding of literacy that can expand the potential of teachers and students to imagine and constructively change the work they do in the classroom.
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