Student: Dance and Personal Narrative
Major Paper #2--The Personal Narrative Essay
We will be working on the Personal Narrative essay for the next three units. The Personal Narrative will be due at the end of Unit #7.
A narrative is simply a story. A personal narrative is a true story, focusing largely on the writer’s own life.
For Essay #2, the Personal Narrative, you will be writing a short essay (at least 3-4 pages in length) about a significant event in your own life. This event need not --and probably should not--be inherently, overly dramatic. Sometimes the most influential moments in our lives are smaller moments, events that we may not recognize as influential until years after the experience. In the personal narrative essay, you will want to tell the story as accurately as you can—search your deep memory—and tell the story from your own perspective. You will also want to exercise your selectivity as a writer, choosing to summarize background information/exposition, and really dramatize important scenes for the reader.
During the course of this unit, you will want to read the examples of the Personal Narrative in Chapter 2. You will want to start brainstorming ideas for your own personal narrative, and--by the end of Unit 5--you will want to have selected a significant event that you wish to focus on in this essay.
Here is one sample personal narrative:
Kyle Terry
"Cops"
Even as a law breaking mischievous youth I had always looked up to Police Officers in my neighborhood. I even looked up to them when they would chase my friends and I when we snuck out at night and kicked sprinkler heads off, or got caught drinking underage. I loved to watch the show “Cops” and always pictured myself in the situations being portrayed on television. In my youth I did a lot of things that most people would look down on and police departments may shun you for, but that didn’t stop me from aspiring to join their ranks. After serving in the military for over five years and
We will be working on the Personal Narrative essay for the next three units. The Personal Narrative will be due at the end of Unit #7.
A narrative is simply a story. A personal narrative is a true story, focusing largely on the writer’s own life.
For Essay #2, the Personal Narrative, you will be writing a short essay (at least 3-4 pages in length) about a significant event in your own life. This event need not --and probably should not--be inherently, overly dramatic. Sometimes the most influential moments in our lives are smaller moments, events that we may not recognize as influential until years after the experience. In the personal narrative essay, you will want to tell the story as accurately as you can—search your deep memory—and tell the story from your own perspective. You will also want to exercise your selectivity as a writer, choosing to summarize background information/exposition, and really dramatize important scenes for the reader.
During the course of this unit, you will want to read the examples of the Personal Narrative in Chapter 2. You will want to start brainstorming ideas for your own personal narrative, and--by the end of Unit 5--you will want to have selected a significant event that you wish to focus on in this essay.
Here is one sample personal narrative:
Kyle Terry
"Cops"
Even as a law breaking mischievous youth I had always looked up to Police Officers in my neighborhood. I even looked up to them when they would chase my friends and I when we snuck out at night and kicked sprinkler heads off, or got caught drinking underage. I loved to watch the show “Cops” and always pictured myself in the situations being portrayed on television. In my youth I did a lot of things that most people would look down on and police departments may shun you for, but that didn’t stop me from aspiring to join their ranks. After serving in the military for over five years and