Description:
Overview Memories seemingly alter reality, taking your mind to another place and time. They can flood your brain for hours, make a lengthy car ride go by in a flash, or get you through a particularly mind-numbing classroom lecture. When your mind drifts to that special place and remembers a past experience, you are reflecting on your own unique story. A story that shares memories or stories from your life is called a personal narrative. The goal of such writing is to bring the memory/memories to life with details that will help the reader: see, hear, touch, and taste the experience. Narrative writings tell a story, and most often use: Action, Dialogue, and Description. This first writing assignment will be scored holistically, using a scoring guide that tells you how well you did. You will be able to improve your grade through further drafts of this Narrative (if there is any need for improvement). The plot diagram should be filled out first (similar to what we did as a class with Cinderella), and you will have time to begin the draft in class today. Please type up the Narrative essay/story and bring a printed out version of it for our peer-review process. The length should be 3 full pages or more.
Using Description and Details In your specific instance or scene, decide what details are necessary to include for the purpose of setting your reader up for your argument, and later, supporting your argument. • What was happening? • Who was there? • What was said? (dialogue is mandatory) • What did the setting look like? Smell like? Feel like? Sound like? etc • Why were you there? What were you thinking/feeling as the situation evolved? • How were you reacting? • How long ago was this? Reflection • Spend some time discussing the meaning of the experience, the realizations you had during the experience and now looking back on it.
Reflection should occur throughout the essay and at the end. It functions as your conclusion when it comes at the end, so should be one or two developed paragraphs that make reference back to details and examples provided in the essay.
Some Thoughts on What NOT to Do: • DO NOT use research (not even the Internet). This essay is about your experiences and reflection on those experiences.
• Try not to write something that makes you feel uncomfortable discussing in public.
• Don’t absolve yourself of any responsibility. If you were involved in a situation, you weren’t a saint or a martyr. Recognizing your faults will make it easier for the reader to see where you’re coming from. Topic
Suggestions Choose one of the topics below, or use an idea of your own from the photograph exercise.
1. We have all had experiences that have changed the directions of our lives. Such experiences may be momentous, such as moving from one part of the country to another or losing a family member or close friend. On the other hand, they may be experiences that did not appear particularly significant at the time but have since proved to be important. Recall such a turning point in your life, and present it so as to give the reader a sense of what your life was like before the event and how it changed afterward.
2. Without getting too sentimental or cute, recreate your childhood perspective of a particular family or community ritual. Your purpose might be to highlight the division between the child"s perspective and the adult"s, or it might be to illustrate the child"s movement toward an adult perspective.
3. Sometimes a significant relationship with someone can help us to mature, easily or painfully. Recount the story of such a relationship in your own life or in the life of someone you know well. If this relationship marked a turning point in your life or if it provided you with an important change of self-image, present enough information so that readers can understand the causes and effects of the change and can recognize the before-and-after portraits.
4. Write a reminiscence of a place that has had considerable significance for you (either during your childhood or more recently)--positive, negative, or both. For readers who are unfamiliar with the place, demonstrate its meaning through description, a series of vignettes, and/or an account of one or two key people or events you associate with that place. 5. In the spirit of the familiar saying, "It"s the going, not the getting there, that matters," write an account of a memorable journey, important either because of the physical, emotional, or psychological experience of travel; or because of the phenomenon of leaving somewhere for an unknown experience.
Overview Memories seemingly alter reality, taking your mind to another place and time. They can flood your brain for hours, make a lengthy car ride go by in a flash, or get you through a particularly mind-numbing classroom lecture. When your mind drifts to that special place and remembers a past experience, you are reflecting on your own unique story. A story that shares memories or stories from your life is called a personal narrative. The goal of such writing is to bring the memory/memories to life with details that will help the reader: see, hear, touch, and taste the experience. Narrative writings tell a story, and most often use: Action, Dialogue, and Description. This first writing assignment will be scored holistically, using a scoring guide that tells you how well you did. You will be able to improve your grade through further drafts of this Narrative (if there is any need for improvement). The plot diagram should be filled out first (similar to what we did as a class with Cinderella), and you will have time to begin the draft in class today. Please type up the Narrative essay/story and bring a printed out version of it for our peer-review process. The length should be 3 full pages or more.
Using Description and Details In your specific instance or scene, decide what details are necessary to include for the purpose of setting your reader up for your argument, and later, supporting your argument. • What was happening? • Who was there? • What was said? (dialogue is mandatory) • What did the setting look like? Smell like? Feel like? Sound like? etc • Why were you there? What were you thinking/feeling as the situation evolved? • How were you reacting? • How long ago was this? Reflection • Spend some time discussing the meaning of the experience, the realizations you had during the experience and now looking back on it.
Reflection should occur throughout the essay and at the end. It functions as your conclusion when it comes at the end, so should be one or two developed paragraphs that make reference back to details and examples provided in the essay.
Some Thoughts on What NOT to Do: • DO NOT use research (not even the Internet). This essay is about your experiences and reflection on those experiences.
• Try not to write something that makes you feel uncomfortable discussing in public.
• Don’t absolve yourself of any responsibility. If you were involved in a situation, you weren’t a saint or a martyr. Recognizing your faults will make it easier for the reader to see where you’re coming from. Topic
Suggestions Choose one of the topics below, or use an idea of your own from the photograph exercise.
1. We have all had experiences that have changed the directions of our lives. Such experiences may be momentous, such as moving from one part of the country to another or losing a family member or close friend. On the other hand, they may be experiences that did not appear particularly significant at the time but have since proved to be important. Recall such a turning point in your life, and present it so as to give the reader a sense of what your life was like before the event and how it changed afterward.
2. Without getting too sentimental or cute, recreate your childhood perspective of a particular family or community ritual. Your purpose might be to highlight the division between the child"s perspective and the adult"s, or it might be to illustrate the child"s movement toward an adult perspective.
3. Sometimes a significant relationship with someone can help us to mature, easily or painfully. Recount the story of such a relationship in your own life or in the life of someone you know well. If this relationship marked a turning point in your life or if it provided you with an important change of self-image, present enough information so that readers can understand the causes and effects of the change and can recognize the before-and-after portraits.
4. Write a reminiscence of a place that has had considerable significance for you (either during your childhood or more recently)--positive, negative, or both. For readers who are unfamiliar with the place, demonstrate its meaning through description, a series of vignettes, and/or an account of one or two key people or events you associate with that place. 5. In the spirit of the familiar saying, "It"s the going, not the getting there, that matters," write an account of a memorable journey, important either because of the physical, emotional, or psychological experience of travel; or because of the phenomenon of leaving somewhere for an unknown experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.