I define the "literacy autobiography" as a reflective, first-person account of one's development as a writing being. In this article I share a classroom practice that invited language learners to consider and compose their literacy autobiographies (LA). The context was a university credit English as a second language (ESL) classroom. The purposes of the LA were to enact many of the principles and concepts considered beneficial to second language writing, particularly the bringing of the first language (L1) into the second language (L2) classroom, and to engage with students in constructivist learning. I describe why and how I envisioned this small LA project; how we (the students and I) enacted the project; the theoretical frameworks supporting LA; how the project developed into a contrastive analysis assignment; and, finally, why I must revision the project. In my view, contrastive rhetoric, contrastive analysis, communities of practice, multiliteracies, and sociocultural theory all provide support for using LA in the classroom.