The Autobiographical Narrative

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The Autobiographical Narrative

• What Matters to You?

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Elements of a Good Autobiographical Narrative

• Purpose and Audience
• Action
• Conflict
• Narrative and Descriptive Details
• Point of View
• Dialogue
• Focus

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Purpose and Audience

• Your primary purpose is to express and explore
  your thoughts and feelings.
• Consider what and how much background information
  readers need to know to understand your
  experience.
• Anticipate your audiences questions and find
  ways to communicate the significance of your
  experience.

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Purpose So What?

• So What?
• Go beyond the simple event.
• Why does your story matter?
• Imagine someone hearing your topic and asking,
  So what? Why is that important?
• The so what is important because it shapes your
  story.

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Purpose So What?

• Imagine someone asking, So what?
• Your answer.
• Might be unstated..
• very clear, but never actually spelled out for
  the reader
• .or might be stated very clearly
• conclusion is a good place for this

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Purpose Going Beyond

• Go beyond the simple retelling of what happened
• Show peoples motives
• Show peoples thoughts and feelings

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Action Show dont just tell

• Show the reader whats happening, dont just tell
  us whats happening.
• my mom told me that what I was doing was wrong.
  I disagreed. She talked at me for a few minutes.
  I was really mad. I went to my room.

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Action Show dont just tell
she looked at me from across the kitchen, where
she was mincing some garlic. Looking up, she
spoke, You know, what youre doing is
wrong. The clock ticked. I stared at my
homework. Still looking down, I offered a
response, Mom, I just- No. Thats it. Im
going to call their house and explain the whole
thing. Youre both too young for this! No!
Mom! Just let me- Its too late for that.
She set the knife aside and walked toward the
phone....
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Action

• Show dont tell
• Good action within the story will make your so
  what more clear
• Revise by trying new verbs
• Revise by experimenting with alternative leads

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Narrative Details

• Tell about specific events and actions.
• Suggest or reveal thoughts and feelings.
• Include dialogue or the exact words of a
  conversation.

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Descriptive Details

• Use sensory language.
• What do you see? Smell? Hear? Taste? Touch?
• Often sensory details require close physical
  observation or memory-mental observation.
• If you cannot find the right word, try a
  comparison. What does your subject smell like?
  Feel like? Look like? Etc.

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Descriptive Details

• Focus on factual and spatial details of places,
  objects, and people.
• If you need help recalling the details, use your
  memory to travel back in time. Try one of these
• Close your eyes and visualize the scene,
  replaying the events in your mind.

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Descriptive Details help contd

• Talk about it ask others who shared your
  experience.
• Return to it if possible return to the place
  where your experience occurred.
• Dream about it sort through a scrapbook,
  pictures, newspaper clippings, yearbooks, songs,
  etc.

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Conflict

• Motivates the reader to keep reading
• Resolution to the conflict is also crucial
• Internal conflict Person vs. Self
• External conflict Person vs. Person, Person vs.
  Nature, Person vs. Destiny

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Point of View

• Can anyone explain First Person?
• I, Me, We, Our
• Writer and reader are intimately connected
• First person narrators may refer to other
  characters in the narrative by using nouns and
  third-person pronouns.

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Point of ViewFirst Person

• First Person Point of view example
• It had really begun back in Charlestown Prison,
  when Bimbi first made me feel envy of his store
  knowledge. Bimbi had always taken charge of any
  conversation he was in, and I had tried to
  emulate him. But every book I picked up had few
  sentences which didnt contain anywhere from one
  to nearly all of the words that might as well
  have been Chinese. When I just skipped those
  words, of course, I really ended up with little
  idea of what the book said.
• --from Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

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Point of View

• Can anyone explain Third Person?
• He, She, They, Him, Her
• Writer seems to be writing from more of a
  distance

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Point of View - Third Person

• Example
• The bus screeched to a stop, and Pat stepped out
  of it and onto the sidewalk. Night enveloped the
  city, and a slight drizzle fell around her as she
  made her way to Als office. Turning the corner,
  she stepped into the dark entryway. The
  receptionist had gone home, so she proceeded
  directly to the office. She knocked on the door
  and entered. Al, standing behind his desk and
  looking out the window, turned toward her with a
  startled look on his face.

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What would this passage sound like if you changed
it to 1st person?

• The bus screeched to a stop, and Pat stepped out
  of it and onto the sidewalk. Night enveloped the
  city, and a slight drizzle fell around her as she
  made her way to Als office. Turning the corner,
  she stepped into the dark entryway. The
  receptionist had gone home, so she proceeded
  directly to the office. She knocked on the door
  and entered. Al, standing behind his desk and
  looking out the window, turned toward her with a
  startled look on his face.

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Something like this?

• The bus screeched to a stop, and I stepped out of
  it and onto the sidewalk. Night enveloped the
  city, and a slight drizzle fell around me as I
  made my way to Als office. Turning the corner,
  I stepped into the dark entryway. The
  receptionist had gone home, so I proceeded
  directly to the office. I knocked on the door
  and entered. Al, standing behind his desk and
  looking out the window, turned toward me with a
  startled look on his face.

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Dialogue

• Animates many narratives, livening the action
• Helps draw reader into the story
• Good dialogue resembles real dialogue without
  copying omitting overuse of um, well, you
  know, etc.
• Avoid over-repetition of he said, she
  replied.
• May use sentence fragments, slang expression,
  pauses to make it sound more realistic.

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Dialogue

• Bad ExampleTelling instead of showing
• My mom was waiting for me to get home so she
  could try to talk me into playing baseball again.
  She tried to con me into it by telling me what a
  great ball player I am and by bringing my friends
  into it. I told her I would, but that I was only
  doing it for her.

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Dialogue

• Good Example
• Mom was waiting for me when I entered the house.
• Your friends. Theyve been talking to you
  again. Trying to persuade you to change your
  mind about going out for baseball. Honey, I wish
  youd listen to them. Just look at all the
  trophies and awards youve She paused.
  Joes mother called me this morning and asked if
  you were playing in the game on Saturday. Dave,
  I wish you would. Please, I want you to. For
  me. It would be so good for you to go andand do
  what youve always
• Okay, Mom. Ill play. But remember, just for
  you.

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Dialogue

• You must have dialogue in your Autobiographical
  Narrative
• You must have at least 3 passages of dialogue in
  this project

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Focus

• Provide lots of supporting details for your main
  idea in a clear, logical order.
• The following piece of writing was turned in as a
  complete project.
• The author claimed that what you are about to
  read was everything that happened. There was
  nothing more to say.
• Whats wrong with it?

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Focus - can you detect any problems here?

• I remember the day my mom got a dog. It was
  named Maggy. We got her in Racine. She was a
  red doberman. Then we moved back to Milwaukee
  and she was so hyper she went to the bathroom all
  over the house. I remember when I was on the
  lawn and there was a rope that was attached to
  two trees and Maggys leash was on that. She
  would chase her own leash. Maggy was too hyper
  for us. We couldnt find a home for her and we
  were more patient than I think anyone else would
  have been. We had to get her put to sleep a
  couple of days ago. I loved that dog. I miss
  her.

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Look over your own project so far...

• Could it be more focused?
• Are there topics hiding within your topic?
• Are there any passages that could be revised for
  dialogue?
• Could you go deeper into just one of those topics
  and block out everything else?

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Organization

• Logical progression move forward in
  chronological order, from the first event to the
  last.
• Order of Importance
• Flashbacks, flash-forwards, and passages of
  reflection interrupt straight chronological
  sequence.

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REFLECTION

• What have I learned about myself from this
  experience? About others?
• How did the experience cause me to change or to
  think differently about things?
• How have my goals changed because of this
  experience?
• What feelings does this experience raise in me?

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BEGINNING YOUR FIRST DRAFT

• INTRODUCTION should do the following
• Grab your readers attention.
• Provide background information
• Include possible hint at the meaning of your
  experience.

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FIRST DRAFT

• BODY
• Write about your first event including narrative
  and descriptive details.
• Continue with event two, and so on. You may vary
  your sequence where you feel necessary.
• Gradually reveal more and more of the
  experiences significance.

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FIRST DRAFT

• CONCLUSION
• Reveal the final outcome of your experience.
• State the meaning of your experience.
• Draw your paper to a close with a quote or
  statement about human experience in general.

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AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVE

• GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN!