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narrative paragraphs

Page history last edited by PBworks 18 years, 3 months ago

  • Narration: A story that is written to explain what, when, and who. It reveals what a reader should learn. Narration paragraphs are usually written in chronological order.

 

It should make a clear point: it should bring to life a moral, lesson, or idea.

 

While it is true a narrative is a story, there is more in the telling of the story. The narrative, or story, needs to make the reader feel involved, teach a lesson, help get an idea across, or feel emotionally about it. The narrative needs to explain who is in the story, tell what is happening, and when it happened. The topic sentence needs to be clear so the reader knows they are going to learn something from the story. The story itself is written in time, or chronological order, as the events occured.~ Mary M.

Common Transitional expressions used in a narrative paragraph are after, finally, soon, as (soon as), later, then, before, meanwhile, upon, during, next, when, first, now, and while.

 

A good way to plan for a well developed paragraph is to write out a topic sentence, then write events in chronological order and then write a conclusion. This is a good way to make sure you stay on topic and that all the events are in the correct order.


  • Here are some examples of a Narrative Paragraph:

 

Peddling On My Own

Learning how to ride a bike for the first time was a nerve racking independent moment. I was about five years old when my sister informed me that I was too old to still be riding a bike with training wheels. That was the time I decided not to depend on them anymore. Even though I had some doubt, my sister and I went outside and started to take the little wheels off my bike. After my bike went through the transformation, I was now ready for the big moment. With butterflies in my stomach, I slowly got on the bike, and with my shaky hands, I gripped the handles tightly. Meanwhile my sister was holding on to me to help keep my balance. I was so afraid the she would let go, yet I was determined to ride this bike on my own. Next with a little push from her, I started to peddle. The faster my bike went the faster my heart raced. Finally I looked back nervously and noticed that my sister let go of my bike a long time ago. I was so excited that I accomplished freedom on my bike that I forgot to peddle. The next step I remember, I was lying on the ground, yet I did not care because of the adrenaline rush. I will never forget the exhilarating moment and growing up stage of riding a bike without training wheels.

~© Fallon Fauque 2005~


My Most Embarrassing Moment

The most embarrassing moment of my sophomore year was how I earned my nick name, Crash. It all started right after school when I turned on to the busiest street by the school. First I pulled up right behind this truck at a stop sign. After a second, a fellow older student told me that I was really close and that I was going to hit the truck in front of me. At the moment I was trying to tell the kid that I was giving a ride to to get back in the car because he was hanging out the window. Since I was distracted, I thought the long line of traffic had started to move, but it hadn’t. In the blink of an eye I hit the back of the truck in front of me. The devastation sunk in. I was so worried that I damaged the truck, but all that I did was scratch his bumper. Lucky for him! Then it came time to look at my car. My car was ruined. The hood was buckled, the front end was pushed back, and my headlights were broken. Humiliated and scared, I still had to drive my totaled care home. During School that year, I never did hear the end of what had happened that day.

~© Tiffany Haggerty~


My Favorite Family Experience

One of my favorite family experiences was when I went to see Anne Frank’s (a Jewish victim of the Nazi persecution during World War II) hideout in Amsterdam, Holland. I had read Anne’s published diary when I was younger, so I was extremely thrilled to actually have the chance to see where she and her family hid from the Germans for so many months. I walked up the stairs of an apartment building and into a room with only a bookshelf in it. From what I remembered from reading the diary, there was a doorknob behind the books. I found the doorknob and turned it and there was the secret annex. When I stepped into the room behind the bookshelf, I felt as if I had stepped back into history. I found Anne’s room still with pictures of her favorite celebrities on her walls. The Frank family’s furniture was still placed where they had left them in the rooms, everything just as described in the diary. I toured each room in awe of actually seeing how they had lived, yet with sadness to know how it all ended. Anne’s diary was no longer just a book to me, but true heart-felt, emotional life story written by a girl I felt I almost knew.

~© Denise Rafferty~


Here is my narrative paragraph, "Kaleb Likes To Mop" My transitional phrases are then, immediately, meanwhile, later, and last summer. This paragraph was based on a true story about my 5 yr old. I wrote this so I could always remember the funny and sweet things kids do. I revised this slightly according to Ms. Carters comments when the paper was returned. The sentence towards the end, "My heart warmed, and I wished that moments like those could remain in my heart forever; but sadly, memories fade and little boys grow up.", expresses my emotional response to the interaction, but I think it could be worded better. If you would like to give me any suggestions or comments, please do.

 

Kaleb likes to Mop

Recently, I held an amusing and memorable conversation with my son, who began kindergarten this year, on the subject of mopping. My 5 year old son, Kaleb, claimed my Swiffer mop as his own, and he enjoys mopping my kitchen and hardwood floors. Last summer, while I was watching him eagerly mop my floors, he suddenly exclaimed, “I’m just like a janitor!” Amused, and somewhat surprised at his thoughtful comparison, I smiled and answered, “Yes, you are like the school janitor Mr. Bruce.” Immediately, a bright smile came to his face, and he agreed with obvious pride and delight, “Yes, I am like Mr. Bruce.” Then I told him that maybe someday, when he was a bigger boy like his brother, he could help Mr. Bruce mop the floors at school. Upon hearing that, he told me excitedly, “I’m going to help Mr. Bruce at school; I could be the one to mop the hallways”. Meanwhile, Kaleb put his mop away and moved on to his next activity. I assumed he would forget about our conversation. Later, on the first day of kindergarten, I was listening to Kaleb’s brother help him prepare his backpack, making sure he had the pencils, erasers, and supplies he needed on his first day of school, when I overheard Kaleb say earnestly, “Should I take my mop?” My older son and I refrained from laughing so we wouldn’t embarrass him, and told him gently that no; he wouldn’t be needing his mop today. My heart warmed, and I wished that moments like those could remain in my heart forever; but sadly, memories fade and little boys grow up. Maybe someday when he is a bigger boy, Kaleb will help Mr. Bruce mop the school hallways, but in the meanwhile he'll have to be satisfied with helping his Mom mop floors at home.

~© 2005 Kelly Byron~


A Once In a Life Time Experience

The one day I spent in Morocco, Africa was an experience of a lifetime. When I finally reached Morocco and got off the bus, there were four little girls standing shoeless in the hot sun. After I swallowed my tears, I could not even try to picture this in America as it is not something you often see in the U.S. Meanwhile my tourist guide instructed me not to give them money as it encouraged the children to beg; however, I was wearing four silver bracelets. As I walked over to the girls, their eyes watched my every move. Then I kneeled down to their level while I gave each girl a bracelet. They stood there gleaming at me, for they were pleased. I felt completely in disbelief that this tiny gesture could mean so much. Though this experience was upsetting, and a huge culture shock, it will stay with me forever.

~© Kayla Marie Anfinson 2005~


Worst Day

My fathers name is Robert Oeleis, he died on Aug 28th 2003 of a heart attack. It was about six in the morning I was sleeping restlessly and the phone rang and I missed it then it rang again. I saw it was my fathers house calling to get me up for the first day of school. To my surprise it was my stepmother crying on the other line. This was the start of the worst day of my life in the short seventeen years I had been alive. She proceeded to tell me that my father has had a heart attack and the ambulance had came and got him. Then the horror began I asked he’s ok right he’s going to be ok . With sorrow in her voice she said Jace he’s dead. Know I started crying and disbelief and ran to my moms room screaming and yelling. Later my family gathered and remembered the day that I recall as the worst day of my life.

~© Jace Oeleis~

My First Time In The Emergency Room

I went to the Emergency Room for the first time when I was thirteen years old. It all came about when I was skateboarding in front of my grandma's house and I tried to do a trick. I almost pulled it of, but I messed it up in the end and headed to the ground with my hands down. My right wrist was twisted the wrong way in the air when I landed hard on the ground, it just broke it. At first it did not hurt at all, but when I looked down at my warped and twisted wrist , all of a sudden excruciating pain rushed through my wrist and I came unglued. Rolling around on the ground yelling and cussing in pain, my parents saw what happened and came running to my aid. My dad started moving it around saying, "it's not broken," as my mom was saying over and over again we need to go to the emergency room to get the real diiagnosis. After about fifteen minutes of yelling and screaming, I finally got up and held my wrist as I walked to the car. The whole way to the ER the pain got worse and worse. Later I foound out the increase in pain was due to massive swelling against the broken bone. I had to sit in the waiting room for almost and hour which seemed loke forever. After waiting impatiently, I finally got into the doctor's office where I got an X-Ray and found out my wrist was truley broken.

~Copyright 2005 Zach Younggren~

 

Cost of making people proud

Sometimes the cost of making people proud can be nerve racking, but it is usually worth it. After two and a half months of planning and three days of beautiful weather, I finished my boy scout Eagle project. It was the biggest project I had ever taken on; by myself I was in charge of getting a hold of permits, donations of food and paint, and organizing volunteers so that the underpass on first avenue north could be repainted. I sat on an old couch in an even older building waiting outside an office filled with a council of people that had the authority to say “this project wasn’t good enough” or “you didn’t show enough leadership”. Needless to say, it was a little intimidating. The environment alone had me stressing. There was a clock above the doors that separated me from the council, and every time I looked at it, I could hear it stealing the precious time I needed to do last minute preparations, click after click after click. My heart was racing as tried to think of everything they could possibly ask in hopes of anticipating what was going to happen. Finally when the man opened the doors and told me that they were ready for me, I thought I was going to faint. I felt like I was a blind man entering a room I have never been in. I did not know what to think. When I got inside it wasn’t what I thought. I had imagined in all my worrying that I was going to be interrogated. I would sit at the end of a long generic table with the only light in the room pointed at me while countless people threw questions at me all at once. I found myself instead in a formal setting. I was asked to sit down, and the questioning began. They didn’t throw the questions at me, but gave them to me one at a time. During the session I realize that I had prepared well. To this day the only thing that made all the stressful anticipation worth it was the day of my award ceremony. All the people that helped me along the way were there to congratulate me. As I stood in front of them I could tell what they were thinking they were proud of me. No matter how old a person is, there is always someone that they want to make proud, and the sacrifices that are necessary are almost always worth the reward.

by Andrew White

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