Download Narrative Essays: Telling a Story to Support a Thesis in College Writing and more Study notes English Language in PDF only on Docsity! Writing the Narrative Essay AP English Language and Composition Material adapted from Patterns for College Writing: A Rhetorical Reader and Guide What is narration? • tells a story by presenting events in an orderly, logical sequence. • can be the dominant pattern in many kinds of writing and in speech. • underlies folk and fairy tales and radio and television reports. Histories, biographies, and autobiographies follow narrative form, as do personal letters, diaries, journals, and bios on personal Web pages or social networking sites. Anytime you tell what happened, you’re narrating. Including Enough Detail Narratives need: • rich, specific details • details that help create a picture for the reader • exact times, dates, and locations when they would be helpful • authenticity Including Enough Detail From “My Mother Never Worked” by Bonnie Smith-Yackel “In the winter she sewed night after night, endlessly, begging cast- off clothing from relatives, ripping apart coats, dresses, blouses, and trousers to remake them to fit her four daughters and son. Every morning and every evening she milked cows, fed pigs and calves, cared for chickens, picked eggs, cooked meals, washed dishes, scrubbed floors, and tended and loved her children. In the spring she planted a garden once more, dragging pails of water to nourish and sustain the vegetables for the family. In 1936 she lost a baby in her sixth month.” The details given add interest and authenticity. We know from reading this paragraph that the central figure is a busy, productive woman, and we know this because we have been given a catalog of her activities. Varying Sentence Structure When narratives present a long series of events, the sentences can all start to sound alike. Imagine Smith-Yackel had written: “She sewed dresses. She milked cows. She fed pigs. She fed calves. She cared for chickens.” This makes for monotonous reading. Shake it up! Look at the variety of structures in that same paragraph on the next slide. Verb Tense Tenses indicate temporal (time) relationships. Verb tense must be consistent and accurate so that readers can follow the sequence of events. Shift tenses to reflect an actual time shift in the narrative. Avoid unwarranted shifts in verb tense; they will make your narrative confusing. Using Transitions Transitions are connecting words and phrases that help link events in time, enabling fluency in your narrative. Transitions indicate the order of events, and they also signal shifts in time. In narrative writing, some commonly used transitions are: first second next then later finally at the same time soon meanwhile before earlier immediately after afterward now You might also need to use specific time markers such as “three years later” or “in 1927.” These indicate how much time passed between events or how much has passed since the events. Structure of the Narrative Essay We use the standard building blocks: An Introduction Body Paragraphs Conclusion
