Personal Narration Essay

1. First, choose a topic. The general assignment is to write about the most
important event during a day that made a difference in your life, so you
should narrow the topic to one particular event on one particular day.

One of the writing skills you will be practicing with this essay is limiting a
topic. If this writing about this day requires writing background information
that explains what happened on other days, it is not a good fit for this
assignment. Choose another day. Also, do not tell anything that happened
during the day that does not relate directly to the important event. In other
words, if you are writing about the time you won a contest, do not write
about the months of practice that came before. (That part would tell about
other days.) Neither should you write about having oatmeal for breakfast
that morning. (That part would not directly relate to the event.)

Also, please do not write about anyone's kidnapping, sexual assault, or

death. Although these horrific times do make a large difference in people's
lives, I find it hard to grade papers on these topics objectively, so please
choose a different day to write about.

2. Find something to say about this topic until you have more than enough
material for an essay that is at least 450 words long. Do not do research for
this assignment.

As you are generating ideas, remember that the purpose of your essay is to
take your readers back in time with you to help them "experience" what you
did. Using descriptive details will help you accomplish this purpose.

3. Write the preliminary thesis statement in one sentence. You should

mention the restricted topic and your essay's debatable point in your thesis
statement. The debatable point is your opinion about the restricted topic.
This point may be a lesson you learned from the event, but other main
points are also acceptable.

4. Decide which supporting points and details should be included in your

essay.

Do not use a source (web page, book, article, and the like) for to get ideas
for this essay. Sources must be documented to prevent charges of
plagiarism, and we have not yet covered how to document sources. Even if
you know howor think you know howyou should not use a source for this
essay because your focus should be on writing a conventionally structured
academic essay, not on research. Using a source for this assignment will
result in a low score for the paper in both the "requirements" and "support"
categories.

5. Determine the method of organization that best suits your purpose,

audience, and supporting points.

Divide the event into logical parts, and use one part per body paragraph.
Jot down an informal outline.
At this point, if you must add some background material to help your
readers put your event into context, you may add material that
happened on other days to the introduction, conclusion, or both. Be
sure, however, that the entire body of the paper is about your single
event.

6. Write the first draft of the essay. Your essay must be at least 450
words long, but no more than 1000 words long.

7. If your essay is too short, make it longer by adding more sensory

details.

If your essay is too long, cut out the less important parts.

7. Read over your first draft.

As you read, look for places in the essay's body that explain your
situation instead of describing it. For this assignment, the explanations
should appear only in the introduction or conclusion. If the body of the
essay explains rather than describes, delete the explanations and add
more description. As the saying goes, narration is not "show and tell."
It is "show; don't tell."
To help you see the description in your paper, highlight all the parts that
tell what can be seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard. When you finish,
most of the body of your paper should be highlighted. (When you are done,
don't forget to remove the highlighting.)

Go back over your essay, looking for transitions signaling time. (Page
417 of How to Write Anything. If you don't find several, add them
wherever they may help readers understand the time sequence of your
narration. To help you see the transitions in your paper, make them
bold. You should have several transitions of time in each body
paragraph. (When you are done, remember to remove the bolding.)
Look at your verbs. Have you used accurate action verbs whenever
possible? Again, you can highlight or bold the action verbs in your
essay. Most sentences--but not all--should have at least one action
verb.
 Finish revising the first draft. You may revise your essay as often as you
think is necessary until you are satisfied with your essay. If you need
to generate more ideas, change your thesis, or reorganize your
thoughts, do so.

8. Title the essay. (428 of How to Write Anything.)

9. Proofread and edit the essay. Pay particular attention to pronoun

agreement and standard punctuation.

Remember that the ethos of your essay is raised if you use diction
appropriate for college papers. One part of achieving this diction is to change
any contractions you may have written in your first draft to their spelled-out
version.

10. Your draft will be turned in on Blackboard.

11. Once you turn in a draft (by the due date), the computer will
automatically assign you two essays to review. If you do not turn in your
draft by the cut off time, then you will not be able to participate in the peer
review drafts, causing you to receive a zero for both assignments.

12. Using the comments provided by your peer reviewer, revise the essay
again.

13. Submit the final draft on Blackboard on or before the date indicated on
the course calendar.