Transcript Unit 3 Narrative Essay - intermediate-writing-9702

Unit 3
Narrative Essay
Part 1.
Nov. 3, 2008
What is Narrative Essay?
• A narrative essay is a story.
• A narrative essay is a piece of writing that
recreates an experience through time.
• A narrative essay can be based on one of your
own experiences, either past or present, or it can
be based on the experiences of someone else.
• In addition to telling a story, a narrative essay also
communicates a main idea or a lesson learned.
http://www.writeexpress.com/narrative-essay.html
Writing Model
• (p.55) Breaking Ground to Be a Man
• Jimmy Carter, 1977-1981
• (p.56) Exercise 4.
Rhetorical Focus (p.58)
• Introduction: to engages the reader’s interest.
– The hook.
– The middle sentences to provide background
information (people, place, time)
– Thesis statement to prepare readers for the following
action.
• Body: to give details about the main event/action.
– To describe what happened by time order, including
details that bring the story to life.
• Conclusion: to describe the outcome.
– The comment about what the event showed or taught.
Writing Model
• P.58 An Embarrassing Accident
• Hook? Background information? Thesis
statement?
• What was the writer’s embarrassing incident?
• What did the writer learn?
Key Features
• Narratives are generally written in the first person, that is,
using I. However, third person (he, she, it) can also be
used.
• Narratives rely on concrete, sensory details to convey
their point. These details should create a unified, forceful
effect, a dominant impression. More information on the
use of specific details is available on another page.
• Narratives, as stories, should include these story
conventions: a plot, including setting and characters; a
climax; and an ending.
http://essayinfo.com/essays/narrative_essay.php
Prewriting Stage
• Identify the experience that you want to write
about.
• Think about why the experience worth writing.
• Spend time drafting your recollections about
the details of the experience.
• Create an outline of the basic parts of your
narrative.
Narrative Topic
• Formative experience: an experience that
shape how we see the world and what type of
person we become later in life.
• Sometimes you show your personality and
characteristic in the story/experience.
– Showing what you “learned” is important.
– E.g. Interview
Writing Task
• Choose one of the following topics. Write a three-tofour-paragraph descriptive essay (200-250 words).
Remember to give a specific title for your essay.
• Topic 1. Write about an experience of learning
something new. What problems did you encounter?
How did you overcome them?
• Topic 2. Think about an event in your life that
seemed bad but turned out to be good. What makes
the event change from bad to good? What did you
learn?
When did the story happen?
- Verb Tense• Past Continuous: to set the scene.
– It is used for an action that continues for some time and
is usually paired with an action in the simple past. It is
often used with "as", "while", and "when".
– Certain stative verbs are NOT used with past continuous.
e.g. seemed, appeared, was/were, became.
• Simple Past
• Past Perfect: to describe something that happened before
another thing in the past.
– It is sometimes used for reported speech after verbs
such as say, tell, report, recount.