Autobiographical Narrative
Definition: An autobiographical
narrative tells the story of an experience that took place in the
author’s life. It usually focuses on the details associate with the experience,
but it also lets the author express his or her thoughts and feelings about what
happened.
Using the following example as a model, write your own
autobiographical narrative. Be sure to stay focused on one event/moment/day.
The essay will be 600-700+ words, but no more than 800. Type your essay and double-space or print it
in black ink, skipping lines. Use a creative title. Use descriptive words and
dialogue. Use the active voice. Rough draft due _______________________.
Writer’s Model
|
Introduction
Attention-grabbing opener
Hint at meaning
Background information; main character
Background information; main event
Description
BODY BEGINS
Event one (chronological order)
Dialogue
Description
Event two
Thoughts and feelings
Event three
Description; action details
Dialogue; thoughts and feelings
Event four
Conclusion
Meaning of experience; thoughts and feelings
Final thought
|
An Actor is Born
I wish I could
say that I was planning my debut on Broadway the next season – or even that
the experience was mildly successful. But I can’t. I don’t even know how I
became involved in the first place. I’ve always known all the techniques for
avoiding attention. I’m never late for class. I always sit in the back row. I
keep my head down at the right times. But last year my family got involved,
and life hasn’t been the same since.
The yearly
drama production is always a big event around school. Last year, posters with
strange objects that were supposed to be windmills, but looked more like
clock hands run amok, went up everywhere. They decorated every available
space and featured only two words: Don Quixote.
Not long after
these decorations appeared, my parents began one of those dinner table
conversations about “Susan’s Shyness and What Can Be Done About It.”
“Why don’t you
sign up?” my father urged. “There are lots of things you can do offstage
–lights, costumes, prompting. And it’ll be good for you. You’ll meet people
and get out of yourself a little.”
Silence from
me.
For some
reason, this particular play really caught on at school. Maybe it was just
the nuttiness—the strange, wonderful man who thought he was a knight and went
off fighting windmills and showed People what it was like to have a dream. We
has seen pictures of him in our world literature books, dressed up in his
great-grandfather’s old, rusty armor. Anyway, my one true friend signed up
and, in a moment of misguided fervor; so did I.
After that, it
was all a chain of circumstances. Halfway through rehearsal, the actress
playing Teresa got sick. I was leaning to work the lights, enjoying my place
in the half-darkness of the theater, when Mr. Jacobs called my name. I don’t
know why he ever chose me as an understudy in the first place—probably
because it was a minor role and he had to have somebody, after all. It
certainly wasn’t my stage presence. Anyway, no one thought for a moment that
Everything
happened awfully fast that night. I was rushed into
Later, they
told me that I seemed to be saying my lines but that nobody could hear them.
It didn’t get easier as the longest play in history went on. I remember
stumbling onto the stage each time in a kind of merciful daze. I discovered
that if I didn’t look at the audience, I could retrieve most of my lines from
my dim memory. No one mentioned afterward that Teresa seemed fixated on the
empty space above the stage.
I didn’t
suddenly blossom into Katharine Hepburn, but the world didn’t come to an end
either. You still won’t find me leaping up to answer questions in class. But
it was fun to go to the party with the rest of the cast, to laugh at some of
the funny bloopers, and to feel good because everyone like the play so much.
For once in my life, I’d been in the limelight a little. And it didn’t feel
so bad, after all.
|
The following is another example, but please use the previous model
as your guide.
On this morning in August when I was 13, my mother sent us
out to pick tomatoes. Back in April I’d have killed for a fresh tomato, but in
August they were no more rare or wonderful than rocks. So I picked one and
threw it at a crab apple tree where it made a good splat, and then threw a tomato at my brother. He whipped one back
at me. We ducked down by the vines, heaving tomatoes at each other. My sister,
who was a good person, said, “you’re going to get it.” She bent over and kept
on picking.
What a target! She was 17, a girl with big hips, and bending
over, she looked like the side of a barn.
I picked up a tomato so big it sat on the ground. It looked
like it had sat there a week. The underside was brown, small white worms lived
in it, and it was very juicy. I stood up and took aim, and went into the
windup, when my mother called my name in a sharp voice. I had to decide
quickly. I decided.
A rotten Big Boy hitting the target is a memorable sound,
like a fat man doing a belly-flop. With a whoop and a yell the tomatoee—came
after me faster than I knew she could run, and grabbed my shirt and was about
to brain me when Mother called her name in a sharp voice. And my sister, who
was a good person, obeyed and let go—and burst into tears. I guess she knew
that the pleasure of obedience is pretty thin compared with the pleasure of
hearing a rotten tomato hit someone in the rear end.
~ From Lake Wobegon
To get started: Make
a timeline, beginning from the time you have any memory, of things that have
happened to you. Include even small events. (Complicated events may have to be
narrowed down)
1. 7.
2. 8.
3. 9.
4. 10.
5. 11.
6. 12.
No comments:
Post a Comment