Final Portfolio: Narrative Writing

Pocket 1: Prewriting

Writer's Note:  I decided to do this portfolio on personal narrative because I wanted to create a possible mentor text for my students for an assignment that I already use in my composition class.  Here is the original assignment:





Writer's Note:  I wanted to fulfill my assignment and meet some of the challenges my students face when doing this writing.  I started by going to Mindmondo.com and creating a mind map of topics I could use to write a personal narrative.  I find that this is a wonderful tool to use for thought organization.  It is an excellent visual of my thought process.  Here is my mind map:

Writer's Note:  It is obvious that I spent more time on some and less on others.  I always tell my students that this is a clear sign that some topics are more important to them than others.  I try to point out that this is an important part of prewriting.

Writer's Note:  Georgia Heard (2013) recommends that writers students try to "distill information into a six-word memoir" (p. 45).  I wanted to try this, so I chose a few of my topics and gave it a shot.  Here are the results:

Writer's Notes:  Heard also explains that asking questions can help writers focus their information.  Asking Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How questions can help form a direction for a personal narrative.  I then decided to use the prewriting assignment that I gave my students earlier this year.

Writer's Notes:  One frustration that I have always had with the prewriting assignment for this essay is the lack of information students write in their prewriting.  It seems that getting 25 items is simply too much to ask.  (Now, I have never done this assignment with them, so I have not shown them a true example of what I am asking for.  Now that I have done the assignment, I can show them what it could look like.)

Pocket 2: Drafting, Crafting, and Revising

Writer's Notes:  I really wanted to spend some focus on writing leads for this assignment.  When I talk to my students about leads, I always call them grabbers.  One of my favorite leads comes from the hauntingly beautiful novel, The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini (2003).  In Hosseini's opening chapter he hints about an incident that changed his life.  It is obvious that this was something terrible, but the full impact isn't given until later in the novel.

Writer's Note:  Parroting Hosseini's style, I wrote the following to go along with my first prewriting idea for the accident I was in with my family when I was a kid.

Writer's Note: This was pretty dark.  Even though I would be sharing it with seniors, I wasn't sure that I wanted to use this moment.  (I really don't want to encourage every student to write about the worst experience they have ever had!)  I decided to try again with another of my prewriting topics.

Writer's Note:  This was better.  Something I could use and show my students how I used Hosseini's words to help me form my own passage.  Once I decided which piece I was going to work with, I was able to focus on the skills that would help me finish this personal narrative, and I was able to finish my writing target sheet.

Writer's Note:  At this point I felt that I was ready to write my first draft.  Because I knew this was going to be a longer piece, I decided to do my rough draft on the computer.  Here is my first attempt (I used my six-word memoir as the title):

 


Writer's Notes:  In Mentor Author, Mentor Texts, Fletcher (2011) wrote about a disturbing incident from his past.  The court incident is one of the most disturbing incidents I have faced in my recent past.  Fletcher mentioned interviewing people who were on the bus with him, so I decided to talk to my husband about his memories of the day.  One thing that stood out for me in my discussion with him was that he said he wouldn't have believed my story if he hadn't been there.  It seems too far-fetched.  Who would put a middle-aged English teacher with no prior record (not even a speeding ticket) in jail for running a stop sign?  Rereading my first draft, I get that same sense of unreality.  Even my family didn't believe the tale.  How can I make it sound like it isn't being told from the words of an over-reacting, hysterical female?  I will have to work on this in the revisions.

Additionally, I want to work on using dialogue and precise language in my writing.  When I teach narration to my seniors, one text that I love to use is Langston Hughes's Salvation.  Hughes is a master at precise language and dialogue.  Here is an example that I used as a mentor text for writing this piece:

Writer's Note:  I then decided to use Lehman's (2011) ideas and make revision notes on my rough draft.

Writer's Note:  With this in mind, along with my target goals, I dove in to the revision of this piece.   I had decided that I would keep my seniors in mind as my audience, and I was trying to use displaying narrative skills as my purpose.  This helped me in choosing the parts to change.  I was amazed at how much time it took to revise my own work.  I was far more critical of my own writing than I would be of my students.

Writer's Note:  If you look back at my original assignment, you will see that there is one glaring problem with my finished narrative:  It's too long.  I have had students complain in the past about the the assignment being too short; I will have to reconsider my perimeters for next year.

Pocket 3:  Editing and Publishing

Writer's Note:  There are several editing decisions that I made in the publication of this piece.  The main aspects of editing have been put in pocket 2 under revising.  You can see there the decisions I made while revising my work.  What stands out more to me are the changes I decided not to make.  When I teach students narration, I caution them about the use of first person pronouns.  Of course a personal narration is written in first person, but that doesn't mean that a writer needs to start every paragraph with a first person pronoun.  On the third page of my piece, I start four paragraphs with "I".  I tried to change them, but they lost meaning to me when I did.  This is an important discovery for me; perhaps I need to take this into consideration when I grade my students' work.

Choosing how to publish this piece was difficult for me.  It is just too personal.  I didn't want to make it flowery or hide my words behind a picture like I did with my last pieces.  My husband had taken some pictures of our car after it had been towed out of the ditch.  I thought using those would set a tone for the piece.  I also wanted to create a bit of intrigue to get people to want to read my piece.  Hence my word selection for the caption.  I hesitated to put a picture of someone in jail at the end, but it is so true to the helplessness I felt in court.

Here is my published piece:

Pocket 4:  Teaching

Note One:  Lesson Idea

There are many mentor texts that I could have used to work on this.  I chose The Kite Runner and Salvation.  Here are a few other texts I could have used:

Coming to an Awareness of Language by Malcom X
Black Men in Public Space by Brent Staples
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Goodbye, Hunting by John Bowe
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (This could also spark some interesting conversation about whether remembering things wrong is really creating fiction.)
On the Back of the Bus by Ralph Fletcher
A Link to the Living by Patsy Garlan

I have been looking at using literature circles with some of my classes.  I could form a lesson using some of the essays mentioned above to have students analyze and discuss what are the most successful strategies for writing narration.  Students could then create their own Target Skills Sheets.

How to teach it:

Following a discussion of the important skills for creating successful narratives, and before starting this in-class assignment, I would ask all students to read Langston Hughes's essay, Salvation.  Then as a class, we would dissect the passage I gave earlier and discuss what aspects of successful narration are being used in this passage.




This would be an excellent time to point out the precise language Hughes uses, as well as the strategies for writing dialogue.  Students would then be broken into small groups and each group would be assigned a different narrative.  Each group would be asked to analyze their essay looking for the most successful aspects of narration in their selected piece.  They would then come back to the group and discuss their piece.  Their group task would look something like this:

Note Two:  Lesson Idea

I have always gone over leads with my composition students before assigning the writing of their own narratives.  I would like to use my examples with Hosseini's text to help inspire them to be more creative in the openings they write.  (I am excited to use my own writing as a mentor text with my students!)

How to teach it:

I would first do an overview of different ways to write leads using the information in from Heard (pp. 61-63) and Anderson (pp. 126-129), as well as the information that I have used for years.  I would then share some examples with the students, including the two that I shared earlier in this portfolio.  I would start by sharing the excerpt from The Kite Runner:




Then I would explain what appeals to me about this cutting.  We could talk about the precise language, his use of foreshadowing, and how he builds suspense in his opening words.  Then I would show them the lead I didn't choose to use.



As these are seniors, I would explain to the my reasons for not choosing this lead and topic for writing my narrative.  I would then show them the lead that I did choose.




I would then ask students to create three to five different leads for their stories.  Students would then partner up and share all of their leads choosing the best one to incorporate into their narrative.

Note Three:  Lesson Idea

I really like Georgia Heard's (2013) six-word memoir idea.  I enjoyed trying to write my own, and can easily see this as a wonderful way to help my students focus on what they are trying to say.  I found in my own writing that the theme of each piece seemed to come through with the six-word memoir.

How to teach it:

After students have finished their preliminary prewriting, I will ask them to write a six-word memoir on each of their events.  I will show them my prewriting (displayed above) and the memoirs that I have written:




I would explain to my students how these six-word memoirs helped me to focus my thoughts.  This will help them focus their ideas and find theme and tone in their own work.  I would ask students to write a six-word memoir for each of their three chosen events required in the prewriting.

Note Four:  Lesson Idea

At some point I will have to take the time to read all of Jeff Anderson's (2011) wonderful book 10 Things Every Writer Needs to Know.  Unfortunately, I haven't yet found the time.  I have skimmed large sections of it, though, and found some great ideas for teaching composition.  Not the least of which are his lists of well-chosen words to spice up mundane writing. 

How to teach it:

After students have written a first draft and are in the revision process of their work, I will give them copies of these sheets and challenge them to work with an editing partner and find ways to beef up their word choice.  I constantly remind my students that polished authors still edit their work, and there are always ways that we can make our writing better.  

Note Five:  Assessment

I use a similar assessment for all seven writing styles in composition I.  I have had great success with this style of assessment, and will continue to use it to grade student papers.  There is a consistency with keeping the same categories for grading that my students appreciate.  The only thing that changes is the specific markers for each style.  Here is an example for narration that I used this year:

Note Six:  Needed Assignment Changes

After doing my own assignment, I have decided on a couple of minor changes that I will make for next year's students.

First, I will rephrase the original assignment to read "a vivid event from your past" rather than "a vivid event from your childhood."  Many students have struggled to come up with an event from their childhood.  I, for one, have few memories from when I was younger than eleven.  Why should I expect my students to have more than I do?

The second thing I need to consider is the length of the paper itself.  I have always stressed that they are supposed to discuss a single moment in their lives and then explain how that moment changed them.  I thought two pages was enough, and anything longer would lead them to going beyond the duration of a single event.  After writing this piece myself, I am considering allowing for longer papers, especially if I am requiring dialogue.

Note Seven:  Catch-All

Although I didn't use it in this portfolio, I did find a wonderful website dedicated to finding your target audience in writing.  I think that this will work better for research, argument, and persuasive essays, but I can certainly use it for a teaching tool in my classes.  Click HERE to check out Ken McArthur's The Top 10 Ways to Find Your Audience.

I also found a wonderful wiki link entitled How to Write a Personal Narrative.  I think this is a link I will share with my students.  Please click HERE if you want to check out this site.