A&B chapter 6 response

Writing a personal narrative is a lot different than writing a persuasive paper in school.  Where the persuasive paper is closed form and driven by the thesis, the personal narrative strives to express its purpose throughout the story interwoven with the story.  When writing the personal narrative, you must also be aware of the flow of the story.  A good story should have a clear beginning slowly rising to the climax of the story, an overarching event that brings out the lesson or the story that the author learned, then lower back down while reflecting on the lesson that was learned.  When writing the personal narrative, it can be really easy to fall into an “and then” trap where the story moves from point to point with little or no clear topic or lesson that the author had learned. 

If you don’t know how to start or don’t know what to do there are 7 easy steps that you can follow to make a quick skeleton of the story.  First you must choose a story that you want to share or an experience where you learned something.  Next you need to determine what your reaction to the story is, what do you want to convey to the reader.  Follow that with questioning that reaction that was biased to the emotions at that time, and focus on what changed with the passage of time.  Next answer the question that you have asked or respond to the reaction.  Fifth analyze the reaction, and question and have different views and other things that were learned.  Finally show what you have learned and the epiphany that came with it, and come to terms with that epiphany.