Assignment: Literacy Narrative



PERSONAL NARRATIVE – 100 points

What is a personal narrative? A narrative is story, so a personal narrative is a story about your personal experiences. You wrote a letter to yourself about what it means to attend Purdue and what you hope to accomplish here. Now you must mine your memories and write about a defining moment in your life that led you to be the person you are today, someone studying engineering and participating in EPICS. Many students cite their family as the reason why they attended Purdue. Why? Think of a representative moment with your family that shows how important they are to you and why you wanted to follow in their footsteps to Purdue. Other students know they wanted to study engineering since they were young. Why? Think about why you want to pursue a career in your field and a representative moment from your life that illustrates that. When did that “Aha” moment happen and why? It could have happened when you were seven and it could have happened last week. Maybe you never did have that “Aha” moment; if so, why are you drawn to engineering? What about your personality or earlier successes leads you to believe you can excel in this field? For this essay to be a success, it is imperative that you make yourself and the other people in your life into fully-realized characters. Think of your quirks, your families quirks, and all the things that make you, you.

You will need to use your skills of description and narration to pull your readers into your story. Be sure to convey the significance of your story; make your readers care about what you are saying. You never want your reader asking “So what?” when they finish the last paragraph of your essay. You are writing this essay for several reasons. First and foremost, you want to entertain your audience with a good story. So have fun with it! Remember that the audience for this narrative will be both me and your classmates during the peer review. Be yourself and trust your instincts. You will be investigating and learning something about yourself as well. We learn unexpected and wonderful things when we write, especially when we write things we don’t know that we know.

You will be exercising writing skills you already have: the muscles of narration, description, focus, organization, structure, and so on. Like every good workout, writing can be painful at the beginning, but if you stay focused and trust your instincts amazing things will happen.

Length: 2 – 3 pages long, double spaced.

Format: Like everything else in this class, this essay must be written in the MLA format. Please consult the MLA section of the OWL Online. The paper must be double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12 point Times New Roman font.

Hand in your project in this order with a binder clip or rubber band:

• Final Draft

• First Draft

• The peer review you did electronically on someone else’s paper

• Your Pre-Writing and Planning (including any writing we do in class)

The parts of this project are due:

Tuesday, September 4th – First draft due. Bring in two hard copies for peer review session.

Thursday, September 6th – We will read a partner essay and peer review in class. Be prepared to discuss your comments with your partner.

Monday, September 17th – Hand in final Personal Narrative project. Bring in project (as described above) to class, ready to hand in at the beginning of the hour. I will not accept the assignment at the end of the class period, please be at this class and be there on time.

Tuesday, September 18th – Hand in Reflection of the Personal Narrative. Bring in a hard copy of the Reflection to class and hand it in at the beginning of the hour.

The Personal Narrative assignment is worth 125/1000 points and the Reflection will be worth 50/1000.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download