Light Bulb Moments
Sometimes we have moments in which we are suddenly illuminated with truth and clarity by an unexpected realization or experience. At other times, the “everyday” moments subtly provide light and guidance about our personality, our aspirations, or our values. You have a treasure trove of stories just waiting to be told, some sad, some happy. In this 500-750 word essay you will narrate one experience in your life and explain its significance. Include a thesis in the essay that explains why this event is/was significant and how it has impacted you. Often our most powerful writing stems from our strongest emotional experiences.
What has been a turning point in your life?
What has been a turning point in your life?
Pre-writing: Choose Your Topic
It can be hard to pick a personal event to write about, but usually once the words start flowing, they won't stop. To help you choose a topic, consider the questions below:
- What significant events have happened in your life so far? (Birthdays, deaths, beginning at a new school, friendships, tragedies, miracles, victories, defeats, personal realizations)
- When has an event occurred that changed your opinion on something? Made you grow as a person?
- How did the experience influence me?
- What did I gain or learn? Am I happier? Wiser?
- Can I find a lesson or moral?
- How might the narrative affect someone else? How might someone else benefit from hearing my experience?
- Does the experience remind me of an event in the public eye?
Pre-writing: Organize Your Ideas
Once you've fleshed out your thoughts, you need to organize them. A narrative, like a piece of fiction, contains plot, setting, crisis, characters, and theme. You will need to determine what each of these is in your narrative.
Details are important in this type of writing. Rather than tell the reader something vague and broad (“I was poor,” “It was a hard experience”) show the reader the gritty details, for instance, how did being poor affect you, and how was it a hard experience? Use specific details to bring the scene to life, but be sure to make certain that the details in your essay are there for a reason –that they add up to a significant point.
Use the prewriting organizer posted on Google Classroom to generate ideas for your narrative.
Details are important in this type of writing. Rather than tell the reader something vague and broad (“I was poor,” “It was a hard experience”) show the reader the gritty details, for instance, how did being poor affect you, and how was it a hard experience? Use specific details to bring the scene to life, but be sure to make certain that the details in your essay are there for a reason –that they add up to a significant point.
Use the prewriting organizer posted on Google Classroom to generate ideas for your narrative.
Drafting Your Essay
- There are no hard, fast rules for organizing the narrative essay, no formulaic outline into which you can plug in topic sentences. For many, that is the appeal of this mode; for other, the frustration. What we can offer here are some general guidelines. Each story lends itself to a different order.
Begin with a catchy hook…
- Sometimes my imagination gets the best of me.
- In my gymnastics career, fear is something I deal with every day.
Have a clear thesis statement. It should be the last sentence of your first paragraph. (Your first paragraph should be short!)
- I never thought I could switch gymnastic teams.
- I didn’t know it, but today I was going to learn an important lesson.
Organization and Chronology: Think in terms of climactic sequence: What is the most important part of the experience? Put that toward the end, right before the resolution and thesis, and work backward from there. If you want to set the stage with a general summary, background, or descriptive writing, that should go toward the beginning.
Paragraph Structure/Paragraph Changes: Separate events clearly into paragraphs. In general, authors of narratives start new paragraphs when something changes:
- speaker changes
- characters change (especially entrances of new people)
- place of action changes (characters move to a new setting)
- time of action changes; time passes, leaves a gap
- action changes (purpose or focus of action)
- mode changes (from retelling to reflecting on action)
Wrapping Up: In the narrative essay, the thesis is generally re-introduced at or toward the end of the paper, after the reader has had a chance to experience the event through the lens of the narrator. Summary of the story should be limited to that which is necessary to effectively deliver the thesis. Try to end with a punch, with a sense of finality. Bring back the hook to form a circle.
- Sometimes I should listen to my imagination
- I don’t know why I was so frightened of changing gyms.
This may or may not be your actual thesis statement.