Explanation of the personal narrative genre.

1. Writing a Personal
Narrative
Genre of Writing for Project 1

2. What is a Personal Narrative?
• A personal narrative is a form of writing in which the writer
relates to an event, incident, or experience in his or her own
life.
• The events of a personal narrative are most often presented
in chronological order, the order in which they actually
occurred in time.
• The personal narrative incorporates vivid descriptive details
as well as the thoughts, feelings, and reactions of the writer.

3. How Should a Personal Narrative
be Written?
• For this first project, you will need to write about one
specific experience or choice that changed how you acted,
thought, or felt. Use your experience as a spring board for
reflection.
• Your purpose is not to merely tell an interesting story, but
also to show your readers the importance and influence the
experience has had on you.

4. What Makes a Good Personal
Narrative?
• Good stories occur everywhere and can be told about
anything. They are as likely to occur in your own
neighborhood as in some exotic locale.
• Potential stories happen daily; what makes potential stories
actual stories is putting them into language, recounting
them, orally or in writing.
• Good stories are entertaining, informative, lively, and
believable; they will mean something to those who write
them as well as to those who read them.

5. What Makes a Good Personal
Narrative?
• In other words, any time you render a full account of a
personal experience, you answer what is commonly known
as "reporter's questions"--the who, what, where, when, why,
and how questions reporters ask themselves to make sure
their reports of news stories are complete.
• Whether your essay is engaging or not depends upon the
subject, your interest in telling it, and the skills you use to
weave together these story elements.

6. Setting the Story Up
• All stories account for something that happened - an
event or series of events, after which something or
somebody is changed. As in a fiction story, your personal
essay will contain the similar elements:
• a character (who?)
• to whom something happens (what?)
• in some place (where?)
• at some time (when?)
• for some reason (why?)
• told from a particular perspective (how?)

7. Parts of a Personal Narrative
• All personal narratives should have the following:
• A beginning that grabs the reader's interest;
sometimes gives background information and a hint
about the meaning or importance of the event.
• A middle that tells about important events, describes
people and places, and tells the writer's thoughts and
feelings.
• An ending in which the writer explains the outcome
and shows the meaning of the experience (what they
learned from it).

8. Characteristics of a Personal
Narrative
• focuses on one experience
• shows the purpose clearly in that the importance of the event is
clear to the reader
• expresses the writer's thoughts and feelings throughout
• is written in first person "I"
• has many relevant sensory details (things for the reader to see.
• hear, feel, smell, taste)
• must have why it is important and/or how it affected the writer

9. Choosing a Topic
• write about something you remember well
• write about something that has meaning or
importance to you
• write about something you do not care to have read
by others