What to Expect with Writing a Narrative

For today, I read chapters 1-6. They focused mainly on writing a narrative, considering the rhetorical situation. I actually really enjoyed the reading- although dry. It helped me outline my objectives when beginning to think about writing a narrative. They mentioned four key topics I need to think about before writing: purpose, audience, stance, and media/design.

They said to ask yourself “why do you want to tell this story”. This is a good question, and if I can’t answer it, I’ve chosen a bad topic. Usually this question can be answered simply by stating the conditions of the assignment, such as with the examples. There was an example narrative about a teacher learning how to read. The purpose for this was to show his own students his experience with learning to read.

I really liked the narrative about the girl who could not seem to pass a high school writing exam. I was able to relate to this well because I experienced a somewhat similar situation in high school. Overall, this reading was really helpful, especially since we’re about to write our own narratives.