PERSONAL NARRATIVE
PERSONAL NARRATIVE
Brainstorming
1. Choose a moment in your past (less than a day). (List 3 and choose one for which you can remember specific details.)
Planning
2. Plotting: List about 5 details of the event.
Expostion: What in your past has lead up to this moment?
Do you want to use a flashback or foreshadowing?
Climax: Which moment is the climax?
Resolution: Do you need to wrap up (bring up to present)?
3. Theme: How do you want to state the significance (the theme)? (Be careful not to moralize.)
4. Character traits and details: How can you show your personality in body language, gestures, facial expressions?
in color and type of clothing?
in interests, hobbies?
in tone of voice?
(Consider connotations, for example, assertive, or pushy?)
5. Style
Voice: How did you sound when you were this age (as compared to now)? What was your level of diction (vocabulary) and syntax (sentence structure, style of speaking,) for example, incomplete thoughts trailing off...)? Give examples of things you would have said. Consider appropriate slang for character.
Tone: What is your tone? (This relates to your attitude toward the theme. Consider the use of graveyards in “The Pedestrian”.)
Writing the Rough Draft
Point of view: Be sure to use first person point of view.
6. Use active verbs, specific details, and figurative language (similes and metaphors).
7. Grammar and mechanics
a. Use the correct form for quotations: My mother always said, “Look before you leap.” Or
“Look before you leap,” my mother always said. “You could end up in the mud.”
b. Remember to start a new paragraph when you have a change in time or place or a new speaker in a dialogue.
c. Check that verb tense is consistent
Editing the Rough Draft (on Wed.) Do your own editing for Wed. Bring colored pens (not red) to class.
Edit another person’s draft.
Final (due Fri.) Type double space (1 inch margins, 12 point font, title with no quotes around it, type word count at end). Use spell and grammar checks but proofread and use commonsense. Turn in brainstorming, planning, rough draft (s), and editing sheet stapled in one packet. Final stapled by itself.
EDITING THE PERSONAL NARRATIVE
WRITER’S NAME_________________ EDITOR 1 ____________________________ EDITOR 2__________
Edit your own work. Then ask others to edit and answer too. EDITORS DO HIGHLIGHTING.
1. NUMBER THE KEY EVENTS OF THE NARRATIVE IN A COLORED INK. Does pacing lag?
Where's the climax? STAR THE CLIMAX IN COLORED INK.
Is it reached logically?
2. What scenes need more development (dialogue, description)?
Can you add foreshadowing to create suspense?
3. Do you CARE about what happens to this person?
Are characters and situations believable?
If not, where and why?
Is additional development of motivation needed?
4. Write the significance (thesis or theme)? HIGHLIGHT WHERE IT IS STATED AND WHERE SUGGESTED OR FORESHADOWED.
Is the theme stated too obviously?
5. Does this feel like formula/escapist fiction (football hero, Cinderella versus a more literature-book short story)?
6. For editors, write on the draft any active reading questions (or any confusions) you had while reading.
9. Reread the title and introductory paragraphs.
a. The title and the exposition should make the reader want to continue reading, establish background, and create curiosity. What suggestions could you make to lead the reader into the story?
10. Editors should HIGHLIGHT and LABEL AT LEAST ONE EXAMPLE OF EFFECTIVE FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE, ACTION VERBS, and TRANSITIONAL WORDS.
Proofing
11. Editors may make suggestions for correction of spelling, diction, grammar and sentence errors on the draft.
Try to use adverb clauses, especially to show cause and effect relationships. They may begin with because, when, since, if, after, etc. and are followed by a subject and verb. For example: When I finished the dishes, I sat down to do my homework. (Notice: use a comma if adverb clause is at first of sentence.)
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