Writing the Narrative Essay—The Remembering Essay

Assignment: Select a person, place, or event that has provided significant growth or insight into life, humanity, or yourself. Recreate the memory for your readers in a narrative essay, telling the story so that the essay has a central idea or main point: a lesson learned, a lesson that you can teach your reader. An important aspect of the remembering essay is to help readers gain some insight about themselves or the world around them.

Length 3-4 pages, typed, double-spaced

Include these elements in your narrative:

1. Character
2. Setting
3. A point of view
4. A dramatic situation
5. A shaped action

1. To develop character: show your character in action describe your character; use dialogue to give insight into the character’s personality.
2. To develop setting, atmosphere, and mood: Imagine yourself in the place with your characters. If you are the narrator, remember the setting or use specific names of places to give readers a sense of place. Name your high school, parks, cities, specific locations to give readers a point of reference, to add meaning and detail to emphasize meaning
3. To develop point of view, decide what person you want your narrative in”
1. 1^st person I
2. 2^nd person “you” to address the audience—use this cautiously, for specific effect
3. 3^rd person using the omnipotent narrator who knows all (especially if you want to conceal your identity or disassociate yourself with subject if your subject is highly personal in nature). You will write in 3^rd person (the mountain climbers)
4. To develop a dramatic situation, show events happening rather that saying what happen. A drama will have rising action, a climax, falling action
1. To developed that shaped action, narrative must have two elements
   purpose: the main idea, the message, the lesson
2. Climax: the point in the story where the conflict is resolved, or the lesson has been learned

Essay Work Sheet:

1. Recall event. You may have to revisit the place: look at old photos, talk to others who share the memory.
2. List important details
3. List descriptive words that will vividly describe events and characters
4. List the characters, including their outstanding characteristics: physical—the way they walk, their facial expression, favorite words, something distinctive about their character that gives insight into their personality, something that the reader will remember them by.
5. What is the purpose of the essay? What is the lesson that you learned? How does the narrative teach or indicate that lesson. What do you want your reader to gain from your essay?
1. Ways to share that lesson:

i. Let the essay imply the lesson—remember you are not just telling a story, you are writing an essay with a clear purpose and main idea

ii. Write a title that will hint or even state the lesson

iii. Explain what you learned in the introduction

iv. Explain what you learned in the conclusion

v. Let the climax be the lesson

vi. Try to avoid the sentence: This is the lesson I learned . . ..

Remembering Essay Links:

The Memory Essay with Links to Student Examples