Schooling
Narratives:
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For
this short workshop piece, you will write a 600-700 word narrative reflecting on your
worst (or best) academic experience, one that will lead your reader to derive
a significant, complex theme or themes. Here’s what’s important when you write a
personal narrative piece: First, you
need to use detail to make your
narrative—and the people in it, including yourself—come to life on the page.
You need to make your experience individual not by saying “I am a unique
individual,” but by showing the details that make you. Second, you need to construct a narrative
of transformation (or failed
transformation). That is, personal
essays begin with the “I” in one state of belief or feeling and end with the
“I” either celebrating or lamenting or being surprised by a change or about a
failure to change. Third, you need to make sure that your
narrative leads readers to significant and complex thoughts and issues. It’s a piece of cake for many writers to
write a frivolous narrative—and it can even be a fun exercise. But here, the challenge is to compose an
essay with a significant and complex theme. You need to lend some general,
transferable significance to the story.
Some readers of personal narratives prefer that the significance be
implied; they enjoy doing the work of inference. Others prefer that significance be stated. As you saw in the selections by Lu and
Elbow, professional writers employ both options, sometimes in the same piece. Eventually, you will compose this piece as a
web essay, but for now, just draft it in your word processor as a regular
document. Eldred-University of Kentucky English-University of
Kentucky Writing Program-Town and
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