The Narrative Essay

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The Narrative Essay

• Your story and what you learned

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A Narrative Essay

• Narrative Essays tell a story
• It is an EXPOSITORY ESSAY
• An expository essay informs the reader about
  something
• Your essay should inform the reader (Ms. Lawson)
  something about you and your experiences in life

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Principles to writing a narrative

• Recreate the incident for the reader
• Think of a generalization that you can make about
  what you learned from the incident
• Remember that even though the main part of the
  narrative is the story, details must be supported
  and described fully using vivid details

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Conventions of a Narrative

• Use I and Me as your pronouns to make it a
  personal narrative. NEVER EVER EVER SAY
  YOU!!!!!!
• Narratives rely on concrete, sensory details.
  These details should create a unified, forceful
  effect, a dominant impression.
• Narratives as stories should include story
  conventions such as characters, dialog, setting,
  a climax and an ending

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Dialogue

• Talking between two characters in a story
• Make it sound natural between two people
• Set off with a Quotation marks around the
  conversation, comma before saying who is speaking
  or after having said who is speaking.
• Look under the bed, my mother said.
• My mother said, Look under the bed.

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Sensory Details

• A paper with many vague or undetailed sentences
  will leave the reader lost and without a clear
  understanding of your topic.
• Instead, your writing should contain specific,
  concrete details to help the reader visualize
  what you are discussing and hold the reader's
  attention
• Use RENNS

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What is RENNS

• RENNS stands for Reasons,Examples, Names,
  Numbers,Senses (sight, sound, smell, taste,
  touch).The following examples illustrate how you
  can use this memory device.

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Reason

• General
• Student parking is becoming an important issue on
  many college campuses.
• Specific
• Because of the increasing numbers of students
  commuting to college,parking is becoming an
  important issue.

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Examples

• General
• The handbook is a good guide for using
  documentation.
• Specific
• The MLA handbook provides a guide for documenting
  works cited.

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Numbers

• General
• Even though many members of the student congress
  were absent, the motion still passed.
• Specific
• Even though thirteen members of the student
  congress were absent, the motion still passed.

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Names

• General
• The governor of Minnesota enacted legislation
  that decreased the amount of aid available to
  college students.
• Specific
• The governor of Minnesota, Arne Carlson, enacted
  legislation that decreased the amount of aid
  available to middle-income college students.

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Senses Sight, Taste, Touch, Smell, Sound

• General
• After we viewed the movie about nuclear
  destruction, we better understood the devastating
  effects of this type of warfare.
• Specific
• After we viewed the enormous mushroom cloud
  produced by a nuclear bomb, we better understood
  the devastating effects of this type of warfare.

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Practice Excuse Note

• Some of the most creative things a teacher can
  read are excuse notes.
• Imagine that you are trying to explain to your
  teacher why you were not in class yesterday. Try
  to make it a REALLY good excuse STORY!
• The more interesting and detailed, the better

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Your Assignment

• You are to write an essay about an experience
  youve had that you learned something about
• This essay should be 3-5 pages long and have all
  the conventions and requirements of a narrative
  essay
• This essay is due February 13th at the beginning
  of the class.
• Revisions are due one week after essays are
  returned.