Required Resources
Read/review the following resources for this activity:
- Textbook: Chapter 1, 5; pp. 16-31
- Lesson
- Link (library article): Identity Stories: Representing Disability, Masculinity and Sensory Impairment in Personal Narrative (Links to an external site.)
Optional Resources
Review the following writing resources:
- Link (multimedia presentation): Citing References in Text (Links to an external site.)
Initial Post Instructions
As discussed in this week’s lesson, rhetorical patterns provide us with a specific purpose and pattern of writing for effectively engaging our reader and for clearly communicating our message. This week, we are focusing on narrative writing and on the opening stages of the writing process. With that in mind, how do you decide what to tell, how to tell it, and what to leave out? If given the task of narrating a moment in time in your life, what specific actions, spoken words, thoughts, feelings, colors, shapes, sounds, and touch sensations would you share? What story would serve to provide the greatest impact on your reader? What memory would be the most telling in illustrating a facet of who you are?
Though we will work to answer these questions throughout the week, let’s do a concrete exercise for this discussion to get started. For the initial post, address the following:
- First, review the section in the Week 1 Lesson titled “Understanding Audience and Planning Your Narrative.” Pay close attention to the short period of time you should identify: a few minutes to a few hours at most. Then, review your options for topics for your narrative essay:
- Do you remember a recent and powerful one-on-one moment with your mother, father, sibling, child, significant other, or close friend that impacted you profoundly?
- Did you have any special, powerful moments during the COVID-19 pandemic?
- Are there any unique moments you have shared with an animal (your pet or another animal) recently?
- Then, list three moments in time in your life, each of which took place in just a few minutes to a few hours at most, that could be developed into a narrative essay. Choose moments that reveal who you are to your reader and that take place over a very, very short time span that can be examined richly (see the following examples). After each possible topic, provide some vivid, concrete, descriptive words and some feelings/meanings related to the moment in time. Your possible topics may all relate to one of the narrative essay topic options, or they may each relate to different topic options.
- Next, in one full paragraph of 5-7 sentences, discuss which one of the above topics you would likely choose right now and why, addressing the role of audience in your choice.
ANSWER
Do you remember a recent and powerful one-on-one moment with your mother, father, sibling, child, significant other, or close friend that impacted you profoundly? A powerful moment I remember as a mother was finding out my son had been driving my other car while I had been working. He just turned ….. To access full answer, click on the button below.