Narrative Essay

WHAT IS A NARRATIVE ESSAY?

A narrative essay is a story written about a personal experience. Writing a narrative essay provides an opportunity to get to know and understand yourself better. One of the best ways to reveal who you are is to write about how you became aware of something, gained a new way of seeing the world, a new insight.

AN EFFECTIVE ESSAY…

An Effective Essay is not based on the length or the amount of sentences you have.

An Effective Essay is not about how neat your writing is, or how cute your name looks on the paper.

An Effective Essay is not about how long it takes your to write compared to someone else.

An Effective Essay allows the reader to feel like they know exactly what the writer (narrator) is going through.

An Effective Essay gives ENOUGH details to paint a picture of what is going on and what the writer felt during that time.

An Effective Essay grabs the readers attention in the introduction, tells a story, and leaves the reader knowing something new at the end.

AN EFFECTIVE ESSAY…

An Effective essay has an introduction and an Ineffective essay will go straight into the story. Remember the INTRODUCTION allows the reader to know what they

are going to be reading about. Remember the INTRODUCTION grabs the reader’s attention. You

may have learned this before as a “HOOK” Quote, Question, Statistic, Give an Interesting Fact or Definition

EFFECTIVE VS. INEFFECTIVE ESSAY TIPS

EFFECTIVE INTRODUCTION EXAMPLEPROMPT: DESCRIBE A TIME IN YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU HAVE HAD TO PERSEVERE.

EXAMPLE INTRODUCTION:Have you ever been to the doctor and received news that you

didn’t want to hear? I thought that at nineteen years old that I wasn’t even close to receiving bad news from any doctors. I thought that I was invincible and nothing could stop me. I was wrong. “Cancer. You have cancer,” my mom said. Whew. That is a dangerous word that I never wanted to hear, much less accept that I had. However, the journey to get rid of it allowed me to become the person I am today.

EFFECTIVE VS. INEFFECTIVE ESSAY TIPS

An Effective Essay will tell the story (THE BODY OF THE ESSAY) and an Ineffective essay will just tell some basic facts about what happened. Remember that a story has a beginning, middle and end. There might be some characters involved in the story. Some of the characters might talk.

During my second year of college, I wasn’t very busy. I went to school, went to work, came home and studied and then did that all over again the next day. I guess you could say that my life was somewhat boring! I didn’t consider it boring, though, because I was so exhausted at the end of everyday. It felt like I had been running a marathon and I just needed a break. Not only was I tired all the time, I began gaining a lot of weight. It looked like I had been eating a few double-macs from McDonalds everyday, but I was eating salads and still packing on the pounds. I might as well have just eaten the double-macs instead. They would have tasted better. I knew that between me being tired all of the time and the weight gain that something had to be wrong with me.

When we figured out that all of this exhaustion and extra pounds was because of cancer, I thought about quitting college. Wasn’t my life ending? I mean people die every year from cancer, right? I couldn’t quit college. It wasn’t me and I had a goal to reach……

EFFECTIVE BODY EXAMPLEPROMPT: DESCRIBE A TIME IN YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU HAVE HAD TO PERSEVERE.

An Effective Essay will have a conclusion to the essay. An Ineffective essay will just end the essay with the end of the story Remember the Conclusion is going to end the

story Remember the Conclusion is going to tell the

reader why they read the essay, again.

EFFECTIVE VS. INEFFECTIVE ESSAY TIPS

I am so ecstatic to say that today I am cancer free. I know that some people do not get the opportunity to say that, so I am very lucky to have caught it when I did. I had a lot of choices to make when I had cancer, but the decisions that I made to stay in college and to keep working towards my goals allowed me to know what it is like to have perseverance. It is so easy to give up. So many people do it everyday, because it is the easy way out. So whatever you go through in life, keeping pushing on. You will be surprised at what you are capable of.

EFFECTIVE BODY EXAMPLEPROMPT: DESCRIBE A TIME IN YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU HAVE HAD TO PERSEVERE.

YOUR ESSAY PROMPT…Prompt: Describe a time in your life when you have had to Persevere.