generating ideas for a personal narrative

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65 Engaging Personal Narrative Ideas for Kids and Teens

Tell a story to engage the reader.

Personal narrative essays are all about telling stories. Engage your reader with lots of descriptive language, and ensure you have a beginning, middle, and end. ( Get more tips about teaching narrative writing here. ) Try these personal narrative ideas to inspire kids and teens to tell meaningful stories from their own lives, no matter what they’ve experienced.

“Describe a Time When You …” Personal Narrative Ideas

Firsts and bests personal narrative ideas, general personal narrative essay ideas, college essay personal narrative ideas.

These personal narrative ideas urge students to dig into their past experiences and share them with their audience. Be sure to share the details, including what took place and how it made you feel, and anything you learned from the experience.

Describe a time when you:

• Were scared
• Overcame a big challenge
• Learned an important life lesson
• Had to make a difficult decision

• Were proud of a friend or family member
• Did something you didn’t want to and ended up liking it
• Met a celebrity or someone you really admire
• Tried something new
• Made a mistake and had to apologize and/or fix the mistake
• Were in danger
• Helped someone in need
• Had a dream come true
• Felt inspired
• Had a really terrible day

• Were a leader
• Made someone else laugh
• Did something you later regretted
• Set a goal and achieved it

These essay topics explore the times you did something for the first time ever, or when you were the best version of yourself.

• Write about meeting your best friend for the first time and how your relationship developed.

• Tell about learning to ride a bike or drive a car.
• Tell about your proudest moment.
• What is your happiest memory?
• What is your earliest memory?
• Explain what it’s like to move to a new town or start a new school.
• What’s the best (or worst!) vacation you’ve ever taken?
• Tell the story of the time you got your first pet.
• Describe your favorite field trip of all time.
• Tell the story of your first day of kindergarten.
• What’s the best meal you’ve ever eaten?
• Describe the best party or celebration you’ve ever attended.
• Tell about the first time someone ever paid you for work (first job, chores for a neighbor, babysitting, etc.) and how it made you feel.

• Describe the first time you spent a night away from home without your family.
• What’s the best gift you’ve ever been given?

Here are more personal narrative topics to inspire young writers.

• Describe a performance or sporting event you took part in.
• Explain the process of cooking and eating your favorite meal.
• Write about a time when you or someone you know displayed courage.
• Share the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you.
• Describe a time when you or someone you know experienced prejudice or oppression.

• Explain a family tradition, how it developed, and its importance today.
• What is your favorite holiday? How does your family celebrate it?
• Describe your morning routine from the time you wake up until the moment the school bell rings to start the day.
• Share what you do on a typical non-school day.
• Tell about a time when you were injured. How did it happen?
• Describe an argument you and a friend had and how you resolved it.
• Tell about what you think your life will be like when you’re 25 years old.
• Explore a time when you felt you were treated unfairly.
• What makes your family different from everyone else’s family?
• If you could relive any day in your life, what would it be? Would you want it to be the same or different?

These personal narrative essay topics all come from real 2022–2023 college applications. ( See more college essay prompts here. )

• Discuss a time when reflection or introspection led to clarity or understanding of an issue that is important to you.
• Share an example of how you have used your own critical-thinking skills on a specific subject, project, idea, or interest.

• Using your personal, academic, or volunteer/work experiences, describe the topics or issues that you care about and why they are important to you.
• Reflect on a personal experience where you intentionally expanded your cultural awareness.
• When was the last time you questioned something you had thought to be true?
• Reflect on a time when you or someone you observed had to make a choice about whether to act with integrity and honesty.
• Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.
• Describe a time when you were challenged by a perspective that differed from your own. How did you respond?
• Elaborate on an activity or experience you have had that made an impact on a community that is important to you.

• Describe any meaningful travel experiences you’ve had.
• Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.
• What is the greatest compliment you have ever been given? Why was it meaningful to you?
• What has been your best academic experience in the last two years, and what made it so good?
• Describe a time when you’ve felt empowered or represented by an educator.
• Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

What are your favorite personal narrative ideas? Come share on the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

Plus, check out the big list of essay topics for high school (100+ ideas) ., you might also like.

15 Inspiring Personal Narrative Examples for Writers

Reveal a part of yourself in your essay. Continue Reading

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295 personal narrative ideas: diverse topics for your essay.

January 6, 2022

Personal narrative writing involves writing about a real-life experience. It’s like non-fiction. You’re writing a story about yourself because it happened to you. At some point, your stories are the perfect personal narrative writing ideas because they are yours.

This way, you get to connect with people. As a student in high school, college, middle school, or university, you can impress your teachers or professors with good personal narrative topics. By choosing the perfect topic, you can create a stellar essay to earn high grades.

Characteristics of a Good Personal Narrative Piece

As a kind of writing which relies on individual experience, your story must:

Have a Clear Purpose This could be a narration of why the story is important to you. The purpose of the story must be clearly expressed without making direct statements about it. Organized Facts and Events The fact you are writing a story about your life doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be organized. You should write sequentially as much as possible to make it organized and lucid. Sensory Description You must also describe your feeling in a way the audience can connect with it. If you need to describe how the cold touch of rain sliced through your skin on a winter dawn, do it. Let your audience feel it as much as you felt it. Involve Readers Your readers must feel important while reading your story. To achieve this, your story must carry them along. If there’s something you need to explain, explain it to make everything clear to them. Include Conflict A story is incomplete without conflicts. This is why you must create enthralling conflicts for your characters. The higher the stake, the better the feelings when the protagonist scales through it.

All these, in addition to a thesis statement are all important features that must be seen in any personal narrative writing.

The Structure of a Personal Narrative Essay

After knowing what your personal essay must have as its features, you must also structure your essay properly. To do this, you should follow this organizational structure:

• Introduction

This is where you grab your readers’ attention. You should set the scene where major characters of the story are also introduced. After this, discuss the role of the argument and introduce the characters. Your introduction must be captivating. Note that you’re writing a story, not a paper.

This is where everything about the story is shared. You must add all the details you know to your story. For instance, the hiking experience must be profoundly discussed, and so do the events that changed you. If you also want to talk about people, describe them. Doing this lets you show your readers, not tell them the story. When you need to change the course of the story, you can write in a new paragraph.

Our list will be extremely helpful to start your essay, but we can assist you even more along the whole process if you want to pay for essay online and save your time for something more entertaining.

Personal Narrative Writing Prompts

As students, one of the most important essays you may ever write is a personal narrative one. This is one of the ways to reveal yourself to strangers and friends. It’s a way to knows more about yourself and other people. You can consider these ideas for a personal narrative piece:

• Identify your most threatening challenges
• What would you say are your survival strategies?
• How do you cope when you fail?
• Would you say that you can’t succeed unless you fail?
• Discuss what you do to achieve your goals
• Do you think “leave your comfort zone” is a sham?
• What do you think about yourself when you’re scared?
• Would you say you don’t mind loneliness?
• What does crying mean to you?
• What are your fears?
• Do you harbor superstitions, what are they?
• Do you feel no one is seeing you as they should
• Write about your rules for life
• Write about your response to bullies
• Write about how you give yourself peace
• How do you relax within the limited time you have to yourself?
• What do you do for fun?
• How do you integrate feedback to improve?
• Would you say becoming an adult is difficult?
• What is the responsibility that scares you the most and why?
• When was your saddest day and why was it?
• How does stress not make anything easy for you?
• Do you act anyhow when you’re provoked?
• How do you perform under pressure?
• Can you discuss what makes you happy?
• Discuss what criticism means and how you take them in
• Discuss what your decision-making process is like
• Explain what motivates you the most
• Do you think you have self-control
• Are you presently easy or hard on yourself to reach your goals?
• Can you work under any circumstances?
• Do you think you’re a creative person?
• What are the conditions that helped you maximize your potentials
• Would you say you’re emotionally intelligent?
• Would you say you can perform the most when you collaborate
• Are you ready for the competitive workplace?
• Would you say you’re a great speaker?
• Would you say you’re a better listener?
• Do you think you’re an agreeable person?
• Discuss what you think about peer pressure.

Personal Narrative Essay Ideas

For your personal essays, how do you discover great essay ideas? You can consider custom personal narrative prompts which are unique to specific events. Some of the topics which are target-oriented are:

• Discuss a time you took more risks than others
• What makes you a daredevil?
• What has made you brave?
• Would you say you’re impulsive?
• Discuss your strategies against boredom
• What are the pranks you’ve ever fallen for
• How do you apologize when you’re wrong?
• Do you think you’re a cynical person?
• Discuss three things that annoy you
• Would you say you’re materialistic?
• Do you consider yourself a minimalist?
• How do you say goodbye?
• Are you on the right or the left?
• What do you think people think about you?
• Why do you think what others think should matter?
• Write about your role model
• Would you say you’re weird?
• Would you say you’re a nonconformist?
• Do you believe in magic?
• Why should you be inspired by people?
• Do you think your role models are heroes?
• Would you think role models must be famous
• Outside your family, are you a different person?
• Within your family, do you want to be someone else?
• Which live show do you love the most?
• Discuss how someone has made a difference in your life
• What are the kinds of music you like?
• Discuss what you’d put in a thank you note
• Write what you’d do if you’re to invite your enemies to dinner
• Recall a time to speak to a large audience of people and write how it felt
• Do you think family is everything?
• Do you think you can’t be anything without family?
• Would you say you want to change your role in the family?
• What are the programs that keep you closer?
• If your life would be a movie, which of the autobiographies would it be?
• Choose a profession of your choice and discuss why
• What do you think about sacrifice?
• Discuss a family treasure
• Would you say you have hobbies someone has adopted
• Why are you called your name?

Personal Narrative Ideas High School

As high school students, you also need to develop personal narrative essays. These could be essays about your parents, neighbors, or your home. Choose from these personal narrative ideas for high school students:

• Describe your relationship with your parents?
• Would you say your parents permit you?
• Discuss the freedom your parents give you
• Do you think your curfew hours make it difficult to live?
• Would you say you enjoy your parents, why?
• Would you prefer to be a parent too?
• What do your parents do with your bad report card?
• Would you say parenting is difficult?
• Do your parents like online learning?
• Are your parents hard on you to do things?
• Do you think parenting could be something to be embarrassed by?
• How did your parents influence the school you attended?
• Do your parents let you create things on your own?
• Do you think you have great teachers and patients?
• What will your neighbors say about you?
• Which characters perfectly describe your neighbors and why?
• What is a common slogan in your environment?
• What are the TV shows you can’t stop watching?
• What do you think about supporting community sport?
• Write about the mayor of your city
• Where is your favorite place?
• Write about your favorite joint
• Write about a park you love
• Discuss how you spend time with nature
• Would you say you see bad things every day?
• Do you love your home?
• What is your favorite ad slogan and why?
• What does chatting with the police feel like?
• Have you ever been assaulted?
• Do you think you’re easily annoyed?

Personal Narrative Topic Ideas

If you’d love to discuss anything at all, there are tons of custom ideas on narrative writing. Some personal narrative ideas are also based on religion, sexuality, race, and many other issues of the world today. Consider:

• Would you say you have no religion?
• Do you think the older generations are too religious?
• Write about how you know about other religions
• Write about what you know about other religions
• Discuss the difference between male and female
• Do you acknowledge the rights of trans people?
• Do you think the LGTBQ is complicated?
• Will you share parental responsibilities?
• What do you know about sex?
• What do you know about gender issues?
• What is your experience of love?
• How does being a ‘real man’ feel?
• Do you think you can be biased?
• Is there a difference in the ways sons and daughters are treated in the home?
• Should there a more pressure on daughters than men
• Discuss your racial identity and why it’s important to talk about it
• Would you say you’re a feminist?
• Discuss your encounter with sexual harassment
• Discuss what you think about catcalling
• What do you think about social hierarchies?
• Discuss the last time you interacted with someone of another race
• Do you think you have racial biases too?
• Would you say you experienced racism before, as black
• Which one is more important to you: money or love
• Are you happy with yourself?
• Would you say money can’t buy happiness too?
• What do you pay attention to the most in the world?
• Do you think it’s okay to be addicted to phones
• How do you teach people about money?
• What are the most important things in your life?

Personal Narrative Writing Ideas

As an attempt to discuss something that deals with people’s daily affairs, good ideas for personal narrative may be hard to come by. Rather than go through the trouble of finding how to think of ideas for a personal narrative, these are custom ideas for you:

• What are the things that matter most for you?
• Narrate what you hope to have in your dream home
• Narrate your experience as if you’d lived in the woods
• Narrate your most fun childhood memory
• Discuss what your passion was as a child
• Explain what you loved most as a child
• Write about your favorite childhood shows and books
• Discuss your favorite childhood picture book
• Write about your childhood influences
• Discuss your childhood most loved places
• Discuss the little things your parents did they made you happy
• Write about the first time you went out with your parents
• Narrate your experience of a swing
• What was your favorite song as a child? Write a response to it
• Which food do you wish you’d eaten as a child
• Narrate what made a gift the best you ever had
• Write about what your most memorable letter
• Write about the divorce of a family friend or neighbor
• Discuss the consequence of separation from a state
• Write about how migrated from a place to another
• Write about how angry your father or mother could be at themselves
• Write about your favorite memories of sleepovers
• How did it feel when you found something you thought you’d lost?
• What are your most prized lessons of teenage years?
• Would you do something else differently not as an adult when you were 13?
• Narrate the achievements that made you proud
• Discuss the rites you engaged in
• Write about your message to the older generation
• Write a message to the younger generation
• Describe yourself as if you’re a 13-year-old right now
• Share a story of your ethical dilemma
• Discuss your sex experience; whether you had it not
• Write about something you cared about that you shouldn’t have
• Write about something you didn’t care about but you should have
• Discuss the last time you collected money from a stranger
• Write about the last time a stranger kissed you
• Discuss your memorable lying experience
• Narrate your experience with drugs
• Explain your experience with gossiping
• Have you ever cheated in exams?

Personal Narrative Ideas College

As a college student, you can also develop incredible personal narrative pieces. Through these pieces, you can connect with your colleagues and share your ideas. Consider these personal narrative prompts:

• Why did you choose the screen time you chose?
• What would you do without a smartphone?
• Narrate your gaming experiences and the thrill you feel
• Write about the apps that do nothing but reduce you
• Would you say tech takes a huge responsibility for change in your life?
• Would you say you are interested in technology?
• What is your experience of religion?
• What is your experience of God?
• Narrate if you’ve had an encounter with God or religion before
• Explain what you’d do if you have control over others
• Narrate what you would control if you can
• Narrate what you can do without thinking otherwise
• What would you say are your best features of YouTube
• Narrate your experience of a date over the internet
• Narrate your experience of seeking to advice online
• Discuss your favorite online sports
• Write about your online sad story
• Write about a terrible experience of bullying online
• Discuss how you fact check what you read online
• Write about how you express yourself online
• Would you say you trust Wikipedia?
• Would you say you enjoy online reviews?
• What is your comment on porn?
• Would you give your passwords out?
• If you have a partner, will you share everything?
• What would you do if you just made a fraudulent purchase?
• Do you chat with anonymous people?
• How do you keep your passwords safe?
• Are there things your parents won’t believe that is on the internet?
• Write about why you trust social media
• What is your favorite Facebook experience?
• What is your favorite Twitter experience?
• What is your experience of wrong grammar structure online?
• Did you ever go through Instagram feeds with envy?
• Did you ever download a stranger’s picture because you like them?

Personal Narrative Ideas for Middle School

At this stage, you have also had plausible experiences of life. What can you say about your life, or your experiences? You can write from these interesting personal narrative ideas:

• What do you know about poo divas and who’s your favorite?
• Write about your first karaoke performance
• Write about the artists you’d like lined up
• Narrate your earliest connection with music
• Narrate your earliest experience of music
• Write about the most loving but sad thing that ever happened to you
• Why do you avoid people?
• Narrate your experience of being stalked
• Discuss how you think social media has been abused
• Tell a story about your most favorite songs
• Tell a story about the music which has inspired you the most
• Which television show would you bring back?
• Which of your childhood commercials is your favorite?
• Why do you prefer cartoons?
• Discuss how television helped your family stay together
• Narrate the work nature of your parents
• Discuss your experience of being cheated
• Which music star do you love?
• Which music tells you about life?
• Which artist tells stories the most?
• How does the music you listen to Influence you?
• Narrate what you think are the best period of your life yet
• Narrate your favorite movies
• Narrate a public performance experience
• Discuss the bad things about horror movies
• Write about your favorite comedians
• Narrate your experience of gaming
• Would you play violent games?
• Do you think zombies are real?
• Do you feel guilty or excited that you kill zombies?

Good Ideas for a Personal Narrative Essay

If you need to discuss cool events and languages, there are good personal narrative topics for you. Some of these topics are:

• Narrate your experience at the museum
• What is your favorite visual artist?
• Discuss your most fascinating work of art
• Write about the importance of education
• Would you say you can’t live without art
• Which words do you like using?
• Which words don’t you like using?
• What are the slangs you used to love?
• What has changed since you started using some words
• Would you call someone a shag? Why?
• Which word do you think people use too much?
• Narrate what you consider a great conversation
• Discuss your time with a lover
• Narrate your experience discussing with your mum
• Narrate your experience discussing with your dad
• Narrate your experience teaching your grandparents about something on a smartphone
• Write about a time you felt you talked too much
• Write about a time you used satires
• Write about a time you attacked people but didn’t feel bad
• What would you say are the most terrible things you’ve done?
• If you had to learn a language, which would it be?
• How do you use your body language and why do you use it?
• If you can influence someone’s memory, what would it be and why would you do it?
• Write about what stresses you the most about school without using F words or castigating anyone
• Discuss what you once looked forward to but no longer look forward to
• Would you rather take private classes, online classes, or physical classes with other students and why would you choose your choice?
• Discuss your experience with bullying and what you could have done when you were bullied or when someone you know was bullied
• Write about the kind of school you wish you had attended and the experience you wish you had had
• Write about the things you hate the most about going to your religious places and the things you wish they had
• Discuss what it would mean to not be educated at all.

Interesting Personal Narrative Ideas

There are also interesting personal narrative essay ideas across all classes. You can choose these essay ideas for your college, high school, middle school, or university assignments. Options to consider are:

• What have you had to do which you didn’t like?
• Discuss how best you once participated in class
• Write about a memorable experience of school you wish were yours
• Write about a memorable experience of a relationship you wish you could have
• Discuss your first encounter with a difficult subject and write when you realize you may fail the course
• Tell a story about what you thought is fascinating about relationships that are no longer fascinating?
• Tell a story about what you think about digital skills and why it is important in the future
• Would you say that programming and computer coding offers more opportunities than any other skills?
• Narrate a terrible experience of yours after you failed an exam and what your parents did
• Narrate the saddest day in class for you
• You were invited to speak to your class about how you spent your weekend or holiday, what were the things that ran through your mind and did you speak?
• Like your friends, you had many terrible and shameful experiences while studying simply because you’re a shy person, narrate some of the most important and terrible moments of your school life
• Write a story about a teacher you would like to appreciate detailing the important things the teacher had done to you without isolating the bad things he or she had also done
• Discuss the textbook you ever felt disgusted with and why you did
• Do you think your teachers are as vast with technology as they ought to be, and would you feel bad if you had insulted them at one time or the other when you were young?
• Narrate the most arousing party you went to focusing on the sensory details which made it different from other parties and proms
• If you will deliver a speech about the horribleness of physical bullying or cyberbullying, focusing on experiences that could make people cry, how would you write the speech and how would you perform it?
• Would you flog students you considered rebellious in your class if you were a teacher, even if the student is truly stubborn and should have probably been in a juvenile center?
• What are the mental health issues you wish people had talked about the most when you were in high school?
• If you could talk to the authorities about the things you think were important for students which weren’t done, what would they be, and how would you do it?

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Personal Narrative | Definition, Ideas & Examples

• February 19, 2024

Table of Contents:

What is a personal narrative, how to write a personal narrative, 1- choose a topic, 2- ideas for your story:, 3- create an outline:, 4- write your first draft:, 5- revise your draft:, ideas for a personal narrative, examples of a personal narrative, 1- born a crime by trevor noah:, 2- eat, pray, love by elizabeth gilbert:, 3- i am malala by malala yousafzai:, why is creating an outline an important step in writing a personal narrative, what is the purpose of a personal narrative, how long should a personal narrative be, what is one technique an author can use to create an engaging personal narrative, how do i generate ideas for a personal narrative, can anyone write a personal narrative, conclusion:.

A personal narrative is a special kind of writing where you tell your story. It’s like sharing a piece of your life with others through words. When you write a narrative, you’re not just writing about what happened but sharing your feelings, thoughts, and unique perspective on life. It’s a creative way to express yourself and let others see the world through your eyes. So, let’s explore how you can make your narrative not just a story but a reflection of who you are.

A personal narrative is a form of creative nonfiction that uses the first-person point of view to recount a personal experience. It differs from a biography or an autobiography in that it focuses on a specific event or a series of events that shaped your identity, values, or worldview. A personal narrative is not a factual report of what happened, but a subjective interpretation of how you felt, what you learned, and what you want to convey to the readers.

Writing a personal narrative can be a rewarding and enjoyable process, but it also requires some planning and preparation. If needed, you can hire a narrative writer . Here are some steps to help you write a personal narrative:

Choose a topic that interests you and that you want to share with others. Think about why this topic is important to you and what message you want to convey.

Brainstorm some ideas for your story. You can use a mind map, a list, or a journal to jot down some details, such as the setting, the characters, the plot, the conflict, and the resolution.

Create an outline for your narrative. You can use a traditional structure of introduction, body, and conclusion, or you can experiment with different formats, such as flashbacks, dialogue, or descriptive scenes.

Use the first-person point of view and vivid language to engage the readers and make them feel like they are part of your story. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or word count at this stage. Just focus on expressing your thoughts and emotions.

Read your strong narrative writing aloud and check for clarity, coherence, and consistency. Make sure your story has a clear beginning, middle, and end, and that it flows smoothly from one paragraph to another. You can also ask someone else to read your draft and give you feedback.

6- Edit and Proofread:

Edit and proofread your final draft. Check for any errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, or formatting. You can also use a tool like VanillaHeartBookandAuthors to help you improve your writing style and readability. Finally, make sure your narrative meets the requirements of your assignment or purpose.

There are many possible topics for a personal narrative, as long as they are meaningful and relevant to you. Some common ideas are:

• A memorable moment from your childhood, such as your first day of school, a family vacation, or a birthday party.
• A significant challenge or achievement in your life, such as overcoming a fear, winning a competition, or graduating from college.
• A life-changing event or decision, such as moving to a new place, changing your career, or getting married.
• A relationship or encounter with someone who influenced you, such as a friend, a teacher, a mentor, or a stranger.
• A reflection on a personal value or belief, such as your faith, your philosophy, or your political views.

To give you some inspiration, here are some excerpts from famous personal narratives:

“I grew up in South Africa during apartheid, which was awkward because I was raised in a mixed family, with me being the mixed one. My mother, Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah, is black. My father, Robert, is white. Swiss/German, to be precise, which Swiss/Germans invariably are.”

“I wish Giovanni would kiss me. Oh, but there are so many reasons why this would be a terrible idea. To begin with, Giovanni is ten years younger than I am, and — like most Italian guys in their twenties — he still lives with his mother.”

“When I was born, people in our village commiserated with my mother and nobody congratulated my father. I arrived at dawn as the last star blinked in the morning sky. Although I was a girl in a patriarchal culture, I was also the first child and my parents had taken a risk.”

Creating an outline is an important step in writing a personal narrative because it helps you organize your ideas, structure your story, and avoid missing or irrelevant details. An outline also makes it easier to revise and edit your draft later.

The purpose of a personal narrative is to share your personal experience, thoughts, and feelings with the readers, and to convey a message or a lesson that you learned from it. A personal narrative can also entertain, inform, or persuade the readers, depending on your goal.

A personal narrative typically ranges from 1 to 5 pages. However, its length ultimately depends on the depth of the story and the writer’s ability to maintain reader engagement.

One technique for creating an engaging personal narrative is to employ vivid descriptive language, painting a detailed picture of experiences and emotions to captivate readers and immerse them in the story.

Ideas for your narrative can spring from any impactful life event. Reflect on moments that stirred strong emotions or led to significant changes. These can be milestones, challenges, or simple yet memorable experiences.

Absolutely! Writing a Personal narrative is something anyone can do. It involves narrating your own experiences in your own narrative voice . What makes it unique is the personal flavor and perspective you bring to the story, making it exclusively yours.

A personal narrative is a powerful way to tell your story and connect with your audience. By following the steps above, you can write a personal narrative that is captivating, meaningful, and original. Remember, a personal narrative is not just about what happened, but about how you felt, what you learned, and what you want to say.

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Last updated on Oct 31, 2022

10 Personal Narrative Examples to Inspire Your Writing

Personal narratives are short pieces of creative nonfiction that recount a story from someone’s own experiences. They can be a memoir, a thinkpiece, or even a polemic — so long as the piece is grounded in the writer's beliefs and experiences, it can be considered a personal narrative.

Despite the nonfiction element, there’s no single way to approach this topic, and you can be as creative as you would be writing fiction. To inspire your writing and reveal the sheer diversity of this type of essay, here are ten great examples personal narratives from recent years: 

1. “Only Disconnect” by Gary Shteyngart

Personal narratives don’t have to be long to be effective, as this thousand-word gem from the NYT book review proves. Published in 2010, just as smartphones were becoming a ubiquitous part of modern life, this piece echoes many of our fears surrounding technology and how it often distances us from reality.

In this narrative, Shteyngart navigates Manhattan using his new iPhone—or more accurately, is led by his iPhone, completely oblivious to the world around him. He’s completely lost to the magical happenstance of the city as he “follow[s] the arrow taco-ward”. But once he leaves for the country, and abandons the convenience of a cell phone connection, the real world comes rushing back in and he remembers what he’s been missing out on. 

The downfalls of technology is hardly a new topic, but Shteyngart’s story remains evergreen because of how our culture has only spiraled further down the rabbit hole of technology addiction in the intervening years.

What can you learn from this piece?

Just because a piece of writing is technically nonfiction, that doesn’t mean that the narrative needs to be literal. Shteyngart imagines a Manhattan that physically changes around him when he’s using his iPhone, becoming an almost unrecognizable world. From this, we can see how a certain amount of dramatization can increase the impact of your message—even if that wasn’t exactly the way something happened. 

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2. “Why I Hate Mother's Day” by Anne Lamott

The author of the classic writing text Bird by Bird digs into her views on motherhood in this piece from Salon. At once a personal narrative and a cultural commentary, Lamott explores the harmful effects that Mother’s Day may have on society —how its blind reverence to the concept of motherhood erases women’s agency and freedom to be flawed human beings. 

Lamott points out that not all mothers are good, not everyone has a living mother to celebrate, and some mothers have lost their children, so have no one to celebrate with them. More importantly, she notes how this Hallmark holiday erases all the people who helped raise a woman, a long chain of mothers and fathers, friends and found family, who enable her to become a mother. While it isn’t anchored to a single story or event (like many classic personal narratives), Lamott’s exploration of her opinions creates a story about a culture that puts mothers on an impossible pedestal. 

In a personal narrative essay, lived experience can be almost as valid as peer-reviewed research—so long as you avoid making unfounded assumptions. While some might point out that this is merely an opinion piece, Lamott cannily starts the essay by grounding it in the personal, revealing how she did not raise her son to celebrate Mother’s Day. This detail, however small, invites the reader into her private life and frames this essay as a story about her —and not just an exercise in being contrary.

3. “The Crane Wife” by CJ Hauser 

Days after breaking off her engagement with her fiance, CJ Hauser joins a scientific expedition on the Texas coast r esearching whooping cranes . In this new environment, she reflects on the toxic relationship she left and how she found herself in this situation. She pulls together many seemingly disparate threads, using the expedition and the Japanese myth of the crane wife as a metaphor for her struggles. 

Hauser’s interactions with the other volunteer researchers expand the scope of the narrative from her own mind, reminding her of the compassion she lacked in her relationship. In her attempts to make herself smaller, less needy, to please her fiance, she lost sight of herself and almost signed up to live someone else’s life, but among the whooping cranes of Texas, she takes the first step in reconnecting with herself.

With short personal narratives, there isn’t as much room to develop characters as you might have in a memoir so the details you do provide need to be clear and specific. Each of the volunteer researchers on Hauser’s expedition are distinct and recognizable though Hauser is economical in her descriptions. 

For example, Hauser describes one researcher as “an eighty-four-year-old bachelor from Minnesota. He could not do most of the physical activities required by the trip, but had been on ninety-five Earthwatch expeditions, including this one once before. Warren liked birds okay. What Warren really loved was cocktail hour.” 

In a few sentences, we get a clear picture of Warren's fun-loving, gregarious personality and how he fits in with the rest of the group.

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4. “The Trash Heap Has Spoken” by Carmen Maria Machado

The films and TV shows of the 80s and 90s—cultural touchstones that practically raised a generation—hardly ever featured larger women on screen. And if they did, it was either as a villain or a literal trash heap. Carmen Maria Machado grew up watching these cartoons, and the absence of fat women didn’t faze her. Not until puberty hit and she went from a skinny kid to a fuller-figured teen. Suddenly uncomfortable in her skin, she struggled to find any positive representation in her favorite media.

As she gets older and more comfortable in her own body, Machado finds inspiration in Marjory the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock and Ursula, everyone’s favorite sea witch from The Little Mermaid —characters with endless power in the unapologetic ways they inhabit their bodies. As Machado considers her own body through the years, it’s these characters she returns to as she faces society’s unkind, dismissive attitudes towards fat women.

Stories shape the world, even if they’re fictional. Some writers strive for realism, reflecting the world back on itself in all its ugliness, but Carmen Maria Machado makes a different point. There is power in being imaginative and writing the world as it could be, imagining something bigger, better, and more beautiful. So, write the story you want to see, change the narrative, look at it sideways, and show your readers how the world could look. 

5. “Am I Disabled?” by Joanne Limburg 

The titular question frames the narrative of Joanne Limburg’s essay as she considers the implications of disclosing her autism. What to some might seem a mundane occurrence—ticking ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘prefer not to say’ on a bureaucratic form—elicits both philosophical and practical questions for Limburg about what it means to be disabled and how disability is viewed by the majority of society. 

Is the labor of disclosing her autism worth the insensitive questions she has to answer? What definition are people seeking, exactly? Will anyone believe her if she says yes? As she dissects the question of what disability is, she explores the very real personal effects this has on her life and those of other disabled people. 

Limburg’s essay is written in a style known as the hermit crab essay , when an author uses an existing document form to contain their story. You can format your writing as a recipe, a job application, a resume, an email, or a to-do list – the possibilities are as endless as your creativity. The format you choose is important, though. It should connect in some way to the story you’re telling and add something to the reader’s experience as well as your overall theme. 

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6. “Living Like Weasels” by Annie Dillard

While out on a walk in the woods behind her house, Annie Dillard encounters a wild weasel. In the short moment when they make eye contact, Dillard takes an imaginary journey through the weasel’s mind and wonders if the weasel’s approach to life is better than her own. 

The weasel, as Dillard sees it, is a wild creature with jaws so powerful that when it clamps on to something, it won’t let go, even into death. Necessity drives it to be like this, and humanity, obsessed with choice, might think this kind of life is limiting, but the writer believes otherwise. The weasel’s necessity is the ultimate freedom, as long as you can find the right sort, the kind that will have you holding on for dear life and refusing to let go. 

Make yourself the National Geographic explorer of your backyard or neighborhood and see what you can learn about yourself from what you discover. Annie Dillard, queen of the natural personal essay, discovers a lot about herself and her beliefs when meeting a weasel.

What insight can you glean from a blade of grass, for example? Does it remind you that despite how similar people might be, we are all unique? Do the flights of migrating birds give you perspective on the changes in your own life? Nature is a potent and never-ending spring of inspiration if you only think to look. 

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7. “Love In Our Seventies” by Ellery Akers

“ And sometimes, when I lift the gray hair at the back of your neck and kiss your shoulder, I think, This is it.”

In under 400 words, poet Ellery Akers captures the joy she has found in discovering romance as a 75-year-old . The language is romantic, but her imagery is far from saccharine as she describes their daily life and the various states in which they’ve seen each other: in their pajamas, after cataract surgeries, while meditating. In each singular moment, Akers sees something she loves, underscoring an oft-forgotten truth. Love is most potent in its smallest gestures.  

Personal narrative isn’t a defined genre with rigid rules, so your essay doesn’t have to be an essay. It can be a poem, as Akers’ is. The limitations of this form can lead to greater creativity as you’re trying to find a short yet evocative way to tell a story. It allows you to focus deeply on the emotions behind an idea and create an intimate connection with your reader. 

8. “What a Black Woman Wishes Her Adoptive White Parents Knew” by Mariama Lockington

Mariama Lockington was adopted by her white parents in the early 80s, long before it was “trendy” for white people to adopt black children. Starting with a family photograph, the writer explores her complex feelings about her upbringing , the many ways her parents ignored her race for their own comfort, and how she came to feel like an outsider in her own home. In describing her childhood snapshots, she takes the reader from infancy to adulthood as she navigates trying to live as a black woman in a white family. 

Lockington takes us on a journey through her life through a series of vignettes. These small, important moments serve as a framing device, intertwining to create a larger narrative about race, family, and belonging. 

With this framing device, it’s easy to imagine Lockington poring over a photo album, each picture conjuring a different memory and infusing her story with equal parts sadness, regret, and nostalgia. You can create a similar effect by separating your narrative into different songs to create an album or episodes in a TV show. A unique structure can add an extra layer to your narrative and enhance the overall story.

9. “Drinking Chai to Savannah” by Anjali Enjeti

On a trip to Savannah with her friends, Anjali Enjeti is reminded of a racist incident she experienced as a teenager . The memory is prompted by her discomfort of traveling in Georgia as a South Asian woman and her friends’ seeming obliviousness to how others view them. As she recalls the tense and traumatic encounter she had in line at a Wendy’s and the worry she experiences in Savannah, Enjeti reflects on her understanding of otherness and race in America. 

Enjeti paints the scene in Wendy’s with a deft hand. Using descriptive language, she invokes the five senses to capture the stress and fear she felt when the men in line behind her were hurling racist sentiments. 

She writes, “He moves closer. His shadow eclipses mine. His hot, tobacco-tinged breath seeps over the collar of my dress.” The strong, evocative language she uses brings the reader into the scene and has them experience the same anxiety she does, understanding why this incident deeply impacted her. 

10. “Siri Tells A Joke” by Debra Gwartney

One day, Debra Gwartney asks Siri—her iPhone’s digital assistant—to tell her a joke. In reply, Siri recites a joke with a familiar setup about three men stuck on a desert island. When the punchline comes, Gwartney reacts not with laughter, but with a memory of her husband , who had died less than six months prior.

In a short period, Gwartney goes through a series of losses—first, her house and her husband’s writing archives to a wildfire, and only a month after, her husband. As she reflects on death and the grief of those left behind in the wake of it, she recounts the months leading up to her husband’s passing and the interminable stretch after as she tries to find a way to live without him even as she longs for him. 

A joke about three men on a deserted island seems like an odd setup for an essay about grief. However, Gwartney uses it to great effect, coming back to it later in the story and giving it greater meaning. By the end of her piece, she recontextualizes the joke, the original punchline suddenly becoming deeply sad. In taking something seemingly unrelated and calling back to it later, the essay’s message about grief and love becomes even more powerful.

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How To Write A Personal Narrative + 5 Personal Narrative Examples

Tell us about yourself.

Scary, right!?

Welcome to the art of writing personal narratives.

It’s one of the most intimidating but powerful writing styles out there.

But don’t worry. We got your back. 

Below, we’re breaking it all down with narrative writing examples.

By the end, you’ll have the tips you need to get it done…and done well.

So grab your notepad, and let’s dive in. 

What Is a Personal Narrative?

Read several personal narratives, pick a topic, hash out thoughts, feelings, and metaphors, create an outline, write a first draft, me talk pretty one day by david sedaris, goodbye to all that by joan didion, typical first year professor by roxane gay, shooting an elephant by george orwell, your brain’s response to your ex, according to neuroscience by amy paturel, final thoughts.

Broadly speaking, a personal narrative is a literary category wherein people creatively explore events in their lives. In addition to telling the tale, personal narratives include pointed reflections, associated feelings, and related life lessons.

The style is frequently used to encourage creative, free-flow writing.

Though similar to memoirs, autobiographies, and personal essays, personal narratives have distinct qualities. Here’s how they differ from the other self-focused literary styles.

• Memoirs : Personal narratives and memoirs are the most closely related. However, memoirs are typically broader in scope and usually feature other parties.
• Autobiographies : Generally, autobiographies are less creative than personal narratives. Instead, they focus on the chronology of one’s life and typically lack a reflective element. 
• Personal Essays: Overall, personal essays are more formal than personal narratives. 

How To Write a Personal Narrative

How do you write a personal narrative? As is the case with all writing, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t exist. However, there are a few steps that many people find helpful. Let’s take a look.

Read several personal narratives before you set pen to paper — or fingertips to keys. It’s the best way to understand the genre and may spark ideas. Besides, reading makes you a better writer. 

Pay attention to what you like best about others’ personal narratives and try to incorporate similar features into your own. The goal isn’t to copy other authors’ styles but instead to get a better idea of structure and tone. 

If you’re looking for titles, check out the list below.

After you’ve read several personal narratives, it’s time to brainstorm. 

While using a computer or notes app is perfectly fine, experts encourage people to brainstorm with a pen and paper. Scientists aren’t sure why, exactly, manual writing unlocks creativity at a higher level and improves cognitive function; they just know that it does. 

When brainstorming, don’t worry about writing well. The objective is to get what’s in your head out. Don’t judge what comes out. Just let it flow. Most people are surprised at the ideas they’re able to generate through this simple process. Who knows, you may shock yourself! 

Once you’ve brainstormed, choose a topic.

Remember, personal narratives typically focus on a single experience, thought, or idea. That’s what differentiates them from memoirs and autobiographies, which cover longer periods of people’s lives.

Try to pick something that deeply resonates with you and lends itself to exploring lessons and reflective ideas.  

Once you’ve established your topic, it’s time to start thinking about what you want to say. What ideas do you want to convey? What feelings do you want to emote?

Including metaphors is a great idea as they add depth and humor to the piece. But be careful; clunky metaphors can drag a work down.

Once you’ve sketched out some ideas, make an outline. This will make the actual writing process a lot easier. The main headers should define the flow of the piece with details included under each.

Some writers prefer to make detailed outlines, while others use a looser style. The choice is yours. Experiment with both to see which works best for you. 

It’s finally time to write the first draft! Weave the ideas in your outline into prose. 

Again, don’t worry too much about perfecting it the first time. Many writers would argue that a good first draft is always bad. It’s the time to blurt out ideas in a semi-coherent manner. 

When “penning” a first draft, try to keep it moving. If you can’t think of the exact right word, put an “X” and keep on going. This may be difficult at first, but the more you do it, the easier it will become.

Once you have the first draft down, it’s time to edit. This is where the magic happens.

Take each sentence one by one. Examine it. 

• Can you use stronger words — especially verbs? 
• Consider if each sentence adds value to the story and themes. 
• Is it cohesive? 
• Does it trigger emotions? 
• Have you painted a picture to which others can relate?

Don’t stop at just one edit. Go through it two or three times. Moreover, give yourself at least a few hours between each revision to give your eyes a rest.

5 Personal Narrative Examples

We’ve discussed the definition of a personal narrative and the steps to writing one. Now, let’s review a handful of examples.

Me Talk Pretty One Day is both the name of a personal narrative and a best-selling collection of essays published in 2000 by David Sedaris. The former is an account of a French class the author took in Paris after moving to France.

His short personal narrative details the humorist’s experience under the lethal linguistic sword of an exceptionally caustic teacher (aka, the “wild animal”), the camaraderie forged between the classmates and the joy of finally understanding a fluent speaker in one’s non-native tongue.

Written in a plain and personal style, Me Talk Pretty One Day is an excellent example of taking a single event and extrapolating universal — and funny — life lessons. 

Notable Passage: At the age of forty-one, I am returning to school and have to think of myself as what my French textbook calls “a true debutant.” After paying my tuition, I was issued a student ID, which allows me a discounted entry fee at movie theaters, puppet shows, and Festyland, a far-flung amusement park that advertises with billboards picturing a cartoon stegosaurus sitting in a canoe and eating what appears to be a ham sandwich.

Written in 1967 and beginning with the line, “It’s easy to see the beginning of things, and harder to see the end,” Goodbye to All That was Joan Didion’s exploration of what it was like to fall out of love with New York City.

Having arrived as a naive and hopeful 20-year-old, the essayist describes her dingy apartment, lack of financial resources, and the things that made Manhattan magical.

Through the course of the piece, however, her angst begins to unravel, and she starts to realize that the “city that never sleeps” was not a good fit as she grew into a full-fledged adult.

Written in Didion’s distinct style, Goodbye to All That is a glowing example of a personal narrative about lost love, growing up, and the ups and downs of one’s twenty-something decade.

Notable Passage: That was the year, my twenty-eight, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and ever procrastination, every word, all of it.

“I go to school for a very long time and get some degrees and finally move to a very small town in the middle of a cornfield.” So begins Roxane Gay’s personal narrative entitled Typical First Year Professor is about her inaugural 12 months as 

The glory of having one’s own office, printer, and nameplate on the door, and the agony of only getting paid once a month, enduring ludicrous lies about missed assignments, and the stress of achieving tenure. 

Written in the first-person, present tense, Typical First Year Professor is a tightly worded, funny, and relatable personal narrative about starting a new life and all the insecurities that come with such a journey.

Notable Passage: I try to make class fun, engaging, experiential. We hold a mock debate about social issues in composition. We use Twitter to learn about crafting micro content in new media writing. We play Jeopardy! To learn about professional reports in professional writing. College and kindergarten aren’t as different as you’d think. 

Composed in 1936, George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant is an account of the venerated author’s time as a British cop in Burma. As the title suggests, it tells the story of when Orwell was tasked with taking out an elephant.

An exploration of being an outsider, Orwell weaved his insecurities about his position in life and not loving his job into a story about a moment in his life when he did something he knew he had to do but didn’t want to. 

Although Orwell is best known for his magnum opus, Nineteen Eighty-Four , Shooting an Elephant gives readers a peek into who he was as a man and his values. 

Notable Passage: But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow, it always seems worse to kill a large animal.) Besides, there was the beast’s owner to be considered. 

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Billed as an essay about “the good and the bad of what happens when you connect with an old flame,” Your Brain’s Response to Your Ex, According to Neuroscience is a unique personal narrative disguised as science writing. 

Amy Paturel describes what it was like to meet up with a serious ex after 15 years apart and getting married and having a child. 

A clinical lesson in how hormones and the brain work to bond us to past loves, Your Brain’s Response is also a personal narrative of what it was like to meet up with someone you once passionately loved as a young adult in middle age.

Notable Passage: Today, our lives couldn’t be more disparate. He’d been living in a loop since I left — upscale dinners, regular happy hours, exotic vacations — and before his engagement, a different woman by his side every few years. I married, bore three children and spent most days with a toddler attached at the hip — or more often the knee because both hands are full.

Personal narratives are one of the most engaging writing styles available. While they’re frequently used for school and job applications, they’re also a great way to flex your creative writing muscle. 

Again, the best way to become a personal narrative writing rockstar is to read lots of them. Good places to check them out include:

• The New York Times
• The New Yorker
• The Atlantic
• O, the Oprah Magazine
• Cosmopolitan
• Harper’s Magazine
• The Antioch Review
• McSweeney’s 

Don’t be afraid to experiment, and do your best to focus on a single event. Narrow things down and be concise. Moreover, use words people know. While word choice should be a focus, do your best to avoid using words that go over people’s heads. 

And remember, the gold is in the editing. 

Good luck! Be you.

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How to Write a Personal Narrative [in 10 Easy Steps]

Table of Contents

Do you hate writing personal narratives? So did I, until I learned how to do it correctly. This blog post will explain how to write a personal narrative by exploring how to craft engaging personal narratives, drawing on your own experiences and emotions. So pull up a chair, get comfortable, and let’s get started!

What is a Personal Narrative?

A personal narrative is a story about a significant event in your life. It can be funny, heartwarming, painful, or all of the above. The key is that it needs to be meaningful to you somehow.

Think back to the last personal narrative you wrote. Chances are, you started with a scene: maybe you were climbing a tree on a hot summer day or looking out at the snow-capped mountains from your window on a frigid winter night.

Whatever the scene, it was likely something that stirred up strong emotions within you and compelled you to write about it. And that’s the key to writing a good personal narrative: start with a scene that will hook your readers and make them feel something.

A personal narrative essay is usually based on a single event that significantly impacted the writer. It could be something as small as a childhood memory or as momentous as a life-changing event.

The important thing is that the event should have affected you and that you can share what happened clearly and interestingly.

Why Write a Personal Narrative?

There are many reasons why you might want to write a personal narrative. Maybe you want to share a funny story about something that happened to you, or maybe you want to write about a time when you faced a challenge and overcame it.

Personal narratives can also be used to communicate important lessons that you’ve learned in life. By sharing your experiences, you can help others learn from your mistakes or inspire them to face their own challenges.

Whatever your reason for writing a personal narrative, remember that your goal is to connect with your reader and make them feel something. With that in mind, let’s move on to some tips for how to write a personal narrative

Features of a Personal Narrative

When writing a personal narrative, it’s important to keep the following features in mind:

First-person point of view: Personal narratives are usually written in first person, meaning they’re written from your perspective. This helps create a more intimate connection between you and the reader.

Dialog: Dialog, or conversation, can be a great way to add interest to a personal narrative. It can also help to further develop the characters in your story.

Vivid descriptions: Personal narratives are all about painting a picture for the reader. Be sure to use descriptive language to bring your story to life.

Emotional appeal: As we mentioned before, personal narratives should stir up strong emotions in the reader. Whether you’re writing about a funny moment or a life-changing event, your goal is to connect with your reader on an emotional level.

Now that we’ve gone over some of the key features of a personal narrative, let’s move on to the next step: brainstorming ideas for your narrative.

Brainstorming Ideas for Your Personal Narrative

One of the best ways to come up with ideas for a personal narrative is to brainstorm a list of potential topics. To get you started, here are some prompts that you can use to spark your creativity:

• A time when you faced a challenge
• An experience that changed your life
• A memory that makes you laugh or cry
• A place that’s special to you
• A relationship that’s significant to you
• A hobby or interest you’re passionate about
• Something you’re afraid of
• A time when you felt embarrassed or ashamed
• A moment when you were proud of yourself
• A time when you made a mistake

Once you’ve brainstormed a list of potential topics, it’s time to choose the one that you’re going to write about.

To do that, ask yourself the following questions:

What’s the most memorable experience I want to write about?

What’s the best way to tell this story?

What details can I include to make this story more interesting?

What lessons have I learned from this experience?

By asking yourself these questions, you should be able to narrow down your list of potential topics to the one that you’re going to write about.

Now that we’ve gone over how to brainstorm and choose a topic for your personal narrative let’s move on to the next step: creating an outline.

Creating an Outline for Your Personal Narrative

Once you’ve chosen your topic, it’s time to start planning your story. The best way to do that is to create an outline.

Here’s a basic outline for a personal narrative:

Introduction:

Start with a hook or an interesting opening that will grab the reader’s attention. Then, give some background information about your topic. Finally, explain what you’re going to write about in your story.

Body paragraphs:

In the body paragraphs of your narrative, you’ll need to include enough detail to bring your story to life and make it interesting for the reader. Be sure to include sensory details, dialogue, and other elements to help create a vivid picture for the reader.

Conclusion:

In the conclusion of your narrative, you’ll want to wrap up your story and leave the reader with a strong final impression. You can share the lessons you learned from your experience or explain how this experience has affected you. By creating an outline before you start writing, you’ll be able to organize your thoughts and ensure that your story flows smoothly.

Now that we’ve gone over how to create an outline for your personal narrative, let’s move on to the next step: writing your story.

How to Write a Personal Narrative: 9 Tips

Now that we’ve answered the question.”What is a personal narrative?” and discussed some reasons why you might want to write one, it’s time to get started! Here are nine tips for how to write a personal narrative that will resonate with your readers:

1. Start with a scene

As we mentioned, the best way to hook your reader is to start with a scene. This could be a specific event that you remember vividly, or it could be an ongoing experience you feel strongly about.

Whichever route you choose, set the scene by providing enough details for your reader to picture what’s going on. If you’re writing about a specific event, describe where it took place, the weather, who was there, and what you were doing.

If you’re writing about an ongoing experience, describe the setting in detail and provide some background information on why it’s significant to you.

2. Use strong verbs

Once you’ve set the scene, it’s time to move into the action. Use strong verbs to describe what’s happening and help your reader feel like they’re right there in the thick of things.

For example, instead of saying, “I was walking down the street,” you could say, “I strutted down the street.” The verb “strut” adds attitude and makes the scene more interesting to read.

Likewise, instead of saying, “I was scared,” you could say, “I quaked with fear.” This not only sounds more interesting, but it also provides insight into your emotional state at the time.

3. Use sensory details

In addition to using strong verbs, another way to make your readers feel like they’re in the scene is to use sensory details. Describe what you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.

For example, if you’re writing about a time when you were very scared, you might say: “My heart pounded in my chest, and I felt like I was going to vomit.” Using these types of details, you can help your reader feel the same emotions you felt at the time.

4. Be honest

One of the most important things to remember when writing a personal narrative is, to be honest. Don’t try to make yourself look better or worse than you are – just write about what happened as truthfully as you can.

Being honest doesn’t mean you have to share everything – sometimes, it’s okay to leave out details that are too personal or hurtful. But in general, try to be as open and truthful as you can about your experiences.

5. Avoid cliches

When writing a personal narrative, it’s easy to fall into the trap of using cliches. For example, you might be tempted to say something like, “It was a dark and stormy night,” or “I had an epiphany.”

While there’s nothing wrong with using a well-known phrase every once in a while, try to avoid relying on them too much. Instead, challenge yourself to be creative and develop your own way of describing things.

6. Write in first person

When writing a personal narrative, it’s important to write in first person. This means using “I” statements, such as “I walked down the street.”

Writing in first person gives your story a more personal feel and allows your readers to connect with you more easily.

7. Use flashbacks sparingly

While flashbacks can be a great way to provide background information or add intrigue to your story, they should be used sparingly. If you use too many flashbacks, it can be confusing for your reader and make your story less cohesive.

If you do decide to use a flashback, make sure it’s relevant to the current story and that you provide enough context for your reader to understand what’s going on.

8. Write a strong ending

The ending of your personal narrative is just as important as the beginning. After all, this is the part of the story your reader will remember the most.

One way to end your story on a strong note is to tie everything back to the main theme or moral of the story. For example, if you’re writing about a time when you overcame a challenge, you might say, “I learned that I was stronger than I thought I was.”

Another way to create a strong ending is to leave your reader with a question or a cliffhanger. This will make them think about your story long after reading it.

9. Edit and revise

Once you’ve finished writing your personal narrative, editing and revising your work is important. This will help you fix any errors and ensure your story is as strong as it can be.

When editing, pay attention to spelling, grammar, and punctuation. You should also make sure your story flows smoothly and that there are no plot holes.

narrative, it’s important to edit and revise it. This will help you fix any errors and ensure your story is as strong as it can be.

Consider using Grammarly to help you with editing. This tool can catch grammar mistakes that you might miss. It’s also a great way to improve your writing skills in general.

When revising your story, ask yourself if there’s anything you can add or remove to make it better. Sometimes, less is more. Removing unnecessary details can make your story more impactful.

Finally, make sure the overall structure of your story makes sense. This includes the order of events and how each scene transitions into the next.

10. Publish your story

Once you’re happy with your story, it’s time to share it with the world. There are a few different ways you can do this.

If you want to keep your story private, you could simply save it on your computer or print it out. You could also bind it into a book or create a digital book using a program like Scrivener.

If you’re interested in sharing your story with a wider audience, you could submit it to a literary magazine or website. You could also self-publish your story as an ebook or print book.

No matter how you share your story, just remember that the most important thing is that you’re happy with it. Don’t worry about what other people think—just focus on creating a story you’re proud of.

Examples of Personal Narratives

Now that you know how to write a personal narrative, it’s time to see some examples. Reading examples of personal narratives can give you an idea of how to structure your story.

Below, you’ll find a few examples of personal narratives. The first compelling personal narrative is about a young woman’s experience with her father, and the second is about a young boy’s experience at summer camp.

Example 1: “My Father and I”

I was always close with my father, but it wasn’t until I went away to college that I realized how much he truly meant to me.

Growing up, my father was always busy with work. He was a successful lawyer, and his job often required him to travel. As a result, I didn’t see him as much as I would have liked.

When I left for college, I was nervous about being away from home. But my father assured me that everything would be okay. He told me he was always there for me, even if he couldn’t be there in person.

Throughout my first year of college, my father and I texted each other almost daily. He would ask me about my classes, and I would tell him about my friends and what I was doing. Even though we were so far apart, it was great to connect with him.

Then, one day, I got a call from my father. He sounded strange, and he told me he had some bad news. He had been diagnosed with cancer.

I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say. All I could think about was how much I wanted to be with him.

Fortunately, my father’s cancer was caught early, and he was able to receive treatment. I flew home as soon as possible and spent the next few months helping him recover.

Although it was difficult, it also brought my father and me closer together. We talked more than ever, and I could finally see how much he truly loved me.

Now, my father is healthy and happy. We still text each other almost daily, and I cherish our relationship more than ever.

Example 2: “My Summer at Camp”

When I was ten years old, I went to summer camp for the first time. I was nervous about being away from home, but I was also excited to meet new people and try new things.

As soon as I arrived at camp, I made a beeline for the nearest bunk. I had been assigned to a bunk with other ten-year-old girls and was eager to get to know them.

However, I soon realized that the other girls in my bunk didn’t want to be friends with me. They would exclude me from their games and conversations and often make fun of me.

I was hurt and confused. I didn’t understand why they didn’t like me.

One day, I decided to take a walk around camp. I had always loved exploring, hoping to find someplace new to play.

As I was walking, I heard laughter coming from a nearby cabin. I walked closer and saw a group of girls my age playing together. They looked like they were having so much fun.

I hesitated for a moment, unsure whether I should go over. But then I decided that there was nothing to lose. So, I walked up to the group of girls and asked if I could join them.

At first, they were hesitant. But after a few minutes, they welcomed me into the group. We spent the rest of the summer playing together and becoming close friends.

That experience taught me a lot about friendship and acceptance. I learned that being different is okay and that there’s always a place for you somewhere.

Now, whenever I see someone who looks like they’re feeling left out, I make sure to include them. Because I know what it feels like to be excluded, and I don’t want anyone to feel that way.

Personal narratives are a great way to connect with your reader. They allow you to share your experiences and lessons learned relatable and engagingly. Hopefully, these examples have inspired you to start writing your personal narrative.

Happy writing!

A personal narrative is a story that recounts a writer’s personal experience.

What is the purpose of a Personal Narrative?

The purpose of a personal narrative is to share an experience that has affected the writer in some way. The goal is to connect with the reader and give them a glimpse into your life.

How long should a Personal Narrative be?

A personal narrative can be as short or as long as you want it to be. There is no set length for a personal narrative. However, it’s generally best to keep your story focused and concise.

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When it comes to writing, Willow Tenny is a true pro. She has a wealth of experience in SEO copywriting and creative writing, and she knows exactly what it takes to produce quality content. On her blog, Willow Writes, Willow shares top writing strategies with both beginners and experienced writers.

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Telling the Story of Yourself: 6 Steps to Writing Personal Narratives

Jennifer Xue

Table of Contents

Why do we write personal narratives, 6 guidelines for writing personal narrative essays, inspiring personal narratives, examples of personal narrative essays, tell your story.

First off, you might be wondering: what is a personal narrative? In short, personal narratives are stories we tell about ourselves that focus on our growth, lessons learned, and reflections on our experiences.

From stories about inspirational figures we heard as children to any essay, article, or exercise where we're asked to express opinions on a situation, thing, or individual—personal narratives are everywhere.

According to Psychology Today, personal narratives allow authors to feel and release pains, while savouring moments of strength and resilience. Such emotions provide an avenue for both authors and readers to connect while supporting healing in the process.

That all sounds great. But when it comes to putting the words down on paper, we often end up with a list of experiences and no real structure to tie them together.

In this article, we'll discuss what a personal narrative essay is further, learn the 6 steps to writing one, and look at some examples of great personal narratives.

As readers, we're fascinated by memoirs, autobiographies, and long-form personal narrative articles, as they provide a glimpse into the authors' thought processes, ideas, and feelings. But you don't have to be writing your whole life story to create a personal narrative.

You might be a student writing an admissions essay , or be trying to tell your professional story in a cover letter. Regardless of your purpose, your narrative will focus on personal growth, reflections, and lessons.

Personal narratives help us connect with other people's stories due to their easy-to-digest format and because humans are empathising creatures.

We can better understand how others feel and think when we were told stories that allow us to see the world from their perspectives. The author's "I think" and "I feel" instantaneously become ours, as the brain doesn't know whether what we read is real or imaginary.

In her best-selling book Wired for Story, Lisa Cron explains that the human brain craves tales as it's hard-wired through evolution to learn what happens next. Since the brain doesn't know whether what you are reading is actual or not, we can register the moral of the story cognitively and affectively.

In academia, a narrative essay tells a story which is experiential, anecdotal, or personal. It allows the author to creatively express their thoughts, feelings, ideas, and opinions. Its length can be anywhere from a few paragraphs to hundreds of pages.

Outside of academia, personal narratives are known as a form of journalism or non-fiction works called "narrative journalism." Even highly prestigious publications like the New York Times and Time magazine have sections dedicated to personal narratives. The New Yorke is a magazine dedicated solely to this genre.

The New York Times holds personal narrative essay contests. The winners are selected because they:

had a clear narrative arc with a conflict and a main character who changed in some way. They artfully balanced the action of the story with reflection on what it meant to the writer. They took risks, like including dialogue or playing with punctuation, sentence structure and word choice to develop a strong voice. And, perhaps most important, they focused on a specific moment or theme – a conversation, a trip to the mall, a speech tournament, a hospital visit – instead of trying to sum up the writer’s life in 600 words.

In a nutshell, a personal narrative can cover any reflective and contemplative subject with a strong voice and a unique perspective, including uncommon private values. It's written in first person and the story encompasses a specific moment in time worthy of a discussion.

Writing a personal narrative essay involves both objectivity and subjectivity. You'll need to be objective enough to recognise the importance of an event or a situation to explore and write about. On the other hand, you must be subjective enough to inject private thoughts and feelings to make your point.

With personal narratives, you are both the muse and the creator – you have control over how your story is told. However, like any other type of writing, it comes with guidelines.

1. Write Your Personal Narrative as a Story

As a story, it must include an introduction, characters, plot, setting, climax, anti-climax (if any), and conclusion. Another way to approach it is by structuring it with an introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction should set the tone, while the body should focus on the key point(s) you want to get across. The conclusion can tell the reader what lessons you have learned from the story you've just told.

2. Give Your Personal Narrative a Clear Purpose

Your narrative essay should reflect your unique perspective on life. This is a lot harder than it sounds. You need to establish your perspective, the key things you want your reader to take away, and your tone of voice. It's a good idea to have a set purpose in mind for the narrative before you start writing.

Let's say you want to write about how you manage depression without taking any medicine. This could go in any number of ways, but isolating a purpose will help you focus your writing and choose which stories to tell. Are you advocating for a holistic approach, or do you want to describe your emotional experience for people thinking of trying it?

Having this focus will allow you to put your own unique take on what you did (and didn't do, if applicable), what changed you, and the lessons learned along the way.

3. Show, Don't Tell

It's a narration, so the narrative should show readers what happened, instead of telling them. As well as being a storyteller, the author should take part as one of the characters. Keep this in mind when writing, as the way you shape your perspective can have a big impact on how your reader sees your overarching plot. Don't slip into just explaining everything that happened because it happened to you. Show your reader with action.

You can check for instances of telling rather than showing with ProWritingAid. For example, instead of:

"You never let me do anything!" I cried disdainfully.

"You never let me do anything!" To this day, my mother swears that the glare I levelled at her as I spat those words out could have soured milk.

Using ProWritingAid will help you find these instances in your manuscript and edit them without spending hours trawling through your work yourself.

4. Use "I," But Don't Overuse It

You, the author, take ownership of the story, so the first person pronoun "I" is used throughout. However, you shouldn't overuse it, as it'd make it sound too self-centred and redundant.

ProWritingAid can also help you here – the Style Report will tell you if you've started too many sentences with "I", and show you how to introduce more variation in your writing.

5. Pay Attention to Tenses

Tense is key to understanding. Personal narratives mostly tell the story of events that happened in the past, so many authors choose to use the past tense. This helps separate out your current, narrating voice and your past self who you are narrating. If you're writing in the present tense, make sure that you keep it consistent throughout.

6. Make Your Conclusion Satisfying

Satisfy your readers by giving them an unforgettable closing scene. The body of the narration should build up the plot to climax. This doesn't have to be something incredible or shocking, just something that helps give an interesting take on your story.

The takeaways or the lessons learned should be written without lecturing. Whenever possible, continue to show rather than tell. Don't say what you learned, narrate what you do differently now. This will help the moral of your story shine through without being too preachy.

GoodReads is a great starting point for selecting read-worthy personal narrative books. Here are five of my favourites.

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen, the author of 386 books, wrote this poetic story about a daughter and her father who went owling. Instead of learning about owls, Yolen invites readers to contemplate the meaning of gentleness and hope.

Night by Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. This Holocaust memoir has a strong message that such horrific events should never be repeated.

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

This classic is a must-read by young and old alike. It's a remarkable diary by a 13-year-old Jewish girl who hid inside a secret annexe of an old building during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in 1942.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

This is a personal narrative written by a brave author renowned for her clarity, passion, and honesty. Didion shares how in December 2003, she lost her husband of 40 years to a massive heart attack and dealt with the acute illness of her only daughter. She speaks about grief, memories, illness, and hope.

Educated by Tara Westover

Author Tara Westover was raised by survivalist parents. She didn't go to school until 17 years of age, which later took her to Harvard and Cambridge. It's a story about the struggle for quest for knowledge and self-reinvention.

Narrative and personal narrative journalism are gaining more popularity these days. You can find distinguished personal narratives all over the web.

Curating the best of the best of personal narratives and narrative essays from all over the web. Some are award-winning articles.

Narratively

Long-form writing to celebrate humanity through storytelling. It publishes personal narrative essays written to provoke, inspire, and reflect, touching lesser-known and overlooked subjects.

Narrative Magazine

It publishes non,fiction narratives, poetry, and fiction. Among its contributors is Frank Conroy, the author of Stop-Time , a memoir that has never been out of print since 1967.

Thought Catalog

Aimed at Generation Z, it publishes personal narrative essays on self-improvement, family, friendship, romance, and others.

Personal narratives will continue to be popular as our brains are wired for stories. We love reading about others and telling stories of ourselves, as they bring satisfaction and a better understanding of the world around us.

Personal narratives make us better humans. Enjoy telling yours!

Write like a bestselling author

Love writing? ProWritingAid will help you improve the style, strength, and clarity of your stories.

Jennifer Xue is an award-winning e-book author with 2,500+ articles and 100+ e-books/reports published under her belt. She also taught 50+ college-level essay and paper writing classes. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, Fortune, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Business.com, Business2Community, Addicted2Success, Good Men Project, and others. Her blog is JenniferXue.com. Follow her on Twitter @jenxuewrites].

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Personal Narrative Worksheet Templates

Customize personal narrative templates.

If you're assigning this to your students, copy the worksheet to your account and save. When creating an assignment, just select it as a template!

What is a Personal Narrative?

A personal narrative is a true story that tells the reader about something that happened to the author. It writing focuses on small moments, and dazzles readers by painting a picture with details, as if they were in the moment with the author.

This type of writing typically includes first-person point of view and reflects the author’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Its purpose is to share an experience with others and to offer insights, perspectives, and reflections that might be helpful or relatable to readers. They can take many forms, such as a memoir, a personal essay, a diary entry, or a blog post.

Why are They Important and How are They Best Used?

Personal narrative writing can be a powerful tool for teaching and learning. By sharing experiences, students and teachers can create a sense of connection and empathy, which can help build a positive classroom structure. They can also help learners develop their writing and storytelling skills, as they learn to craft compelling accounts that convey their thoughts and emotions.

One effective way to use personal narratives in an educational context is to have kids write and share their own narrative writing with their peers. This can be done in a variety of ways, such as through journaling, small group discussions, Google slides, or class presentations. Teachers can provide prompts or topics for learners to write about, or they can allow the class to choose their own topics based on their interests and experiences.

Personal narratives can also be used to teach important concepts and skills. Teachers can use them to teach literary elements such as plot, character development, and point of view. Students can analyze personal narratives to identify these elements and understand how they contribute to the overall plot. They can also be used to teach critical thinking skills, as students learn to evaluate the author’s perspective and reflect on their own beliefs and experiences.

These pieces of writing teach children how to write about a real memory in their lives. Writing a personal narrative story will allow self expression and the ability to write about something that has a great deal of meaning and importance to them. They also teach writing organization, rough draft writing, planning, the use of dialogue, and vivid imagery.

Personal Narrative Examples

Here are some sample ideas

• ‘’The Day I Learned to Ride a Bike’’: This describes a memorable experience of the author learning to ride a bike, including the excitement and fear she felt.
• ‘’My First Day of High School’’: This story shares the author’s thoughts and emotions as she begins a new phase of her education, including the challenges and opportunities she faces.
• ‘’A Summer in Europe’’: This recounts the author’s experiences traveling throughout Europe, including the people she met, the places she visited, and the lessons she learned.
• ‘’My Grandmother’s House’’: This personal story describes the author’s memories of visiting her grandmother’s house as a child, including the sights, sounds, and smells that evoke a sense of nostalgia.
• ‘’Overcoming My Fear of Public Speaking’’: This shares the author’s journey to overcome the fear of public speaking, including the strategies she used and the lessons she learned.

Personal narratives can take many forms and cover a wide range of topics, but they all share a common thread of conveying a personal experience or perspective.

Personal Narrative Template

A narrative planning template is a structured framework used to outline and organize the key components of a narrative or story. Here is an example of a template:

• Introduction: Begin by introducing the experience or event that you will be writing about. Provide some context in the beginning lines for the reader and set the stage for the story you will be telling.
• Setting the Scene: Describe the settings and atmosphere of the experience. Include details that will help the reader visualize the scene and understand the context.
• Challenge or Conflict: Describe the challenge or conflict that you faced during the experience. What was the obstacle that you needed to overcome or the problem that you needed to solve?
• Rising Action: Describe the events or actions that led up to the climax of the story. How did you navigate the challenge or conflict?
• Climax: Describe the moment of highest tension or intensity. This is the turning point that changes the course of the narrative.
• Falling Action: Describe the events or actions that occurred after the climax. How did the situation change as a result of the climax?
• Conclusion: End the story by reflecting on what you learned or how you grew from the experience. Share any insights or perspectives that you gained, and provide closure to the narrative.

Personal Narrative Maker

A personal narrative maker is a tool or software that helps individuals create personal accounts, often in the form of written stories or essays. These tools can assist with generating ideas, organizing thoughts, and even provide prompts to help the writer get started.

Some personal narrative makers may have templates or pre-designed structures that individuals can follow. Others may provide suggestions or tips on how to improve the story’s flow and impact.

Some personal narrative makers may also offer features like grammar and spell-check, which can help writers polish their work before sharing it with others. It can also be helpful resources for individuals who are looking to share personal experiences in a creative and engaging way.

How to Make a Personal Narrative

Choose one of the premade templates.

We have lots of templates to choose from. Take a look at our example for inspiration!

Click on "Copy Template"

Once you do this, you will be directed to the storyboard creator.

Give Your Worksheet a Name!

Be sure to call it something related to the topic so that you can easily find it in the future.

Edit Your Worksheet

This is where you will include directions, specific questions and images, and make any aesthetic changes that you would like. The options are endless!

Click "Save and Exit"

When you are finished with your worksheet, click this button in the lower right hand corner to exit your storyboard.

From here you can print, download as a PDF, attach it to an assignment and use it digitally, and more!

Other Templates to Use with Your Class

• Creative Writing Worksheets : Creative writing worksheets can be valuable resources to help students improve their writing skills and develop their creativity. These worksheets can provide a structured approach to brainstorming and organizing ideas, which can help students become more confident and proficient writers. Creative writing worksheets can also be used to teach various literary techniques, such as character development, plot, settings, and dialogue.
• Point of View in Literature : Point of view in literature is important for developing critical reading and analytical skills. Analyzing the point of view can provide insight into the author’s intentions, the character’s motivations and perspectives, and the overall themes and messages. By examining the point of view in a piece of literature, students can better understand the relationships between the characters and how their perceptions and experiences affect the event of the story.
• First Day of School Templates : First day of school templates are graphic organizers or visual aids that are designed to help teachers and students prepare for the first day of school. These templates can also take various forms, but typically include spaces or sections for the following elements: Welcome message, Introduction, Schedule, Rules and Expectations, Icebreakers and team-building activities; Classroom procedures and routines.
• Storytelling Templates : They are visual aids that help writers plan and structure their stories. They can help students to better understand and analyze the key elements of a story, as well as plan and organize their own writing.
• Sequencing Worksheets : Sequencing worksheets are educational tools used to help students understand and practice sequencing, which is the process of putting events or items in a logical order. These worksheets can take various forms, but typically include a series of events or steps that need to be put in the correct order. It can also be used in language arts, math and science.

Happy Creating!

Frequently Asked Questions About Personal Narrative Worksheets

What is a personal narrative online.

A personal narrative online is a plan or guide that organizes the events and details of a personal experience into a coherent and engaging story.

What is a narrative outline example?

It typically includes an introduction with a hook, background information, and a thesis statement, followed by the body that details the events or experiences of the story, and a conclusion that reflects on the significance of the experience and leaves a lasting impression on the reader. The outline can be briefed or detailed, and there are templates available to guide the writing process.

What is a narrative outline template?

A narrative outline template is a pre-designed document that provides a structure and format for organizing a personal narrative. The outline for personal narrative typically includes headings or sections for the introduction, body, and conclusion, as well as prompts or questions to guide the writer in detailing their personal experience.

What are some personal narrative ideas?

Ideas can come from a variety of experiences, such as a meaningful trip, a life-changing event, a challenge or accomplishment, or a significant relationship. Other ideas could include overcoming a fear or obstacle, learning a valuable lesson, or experiencing a cultural tradition or celebration.

How to write a personal narrative?

To write a personal narrative, start by choosing a meaningful experience or event to focus on. Then, create an outline or template to organize the details of the story, including the introduction, body, and conclusion. Use sensory details, dialogue and personal reflection to bring the story to life, and consider the significance of the experience or lesson learned. Finally, revise and edit the narrative for clarity, coherence and impact.

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Strategies for Writing a Personal Narrative Essay

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Prewriting Strategies for a Personal Narrative

Lesson Objective:   To generate ideas based on personal experiences and to begin writing a personal story focused on one particular moment in one's life.

Materials Needed :  paper, pen or pencil, a computer or mobile device with word processor software or application

In order to write a personal narrative, you must choose a personal experience to write about.  There are many different ways to choose the focus of your essay.  Once you have selected a significant moment in your life, you must recall important information about the experience, and then organize the details to make a lasting impression.  Prewriting strategies are writing techniques that help you generate and clarify ideas.  In this lesson, we will explore four prewriting strategies that can help you choose an experience for your personal narrative essay and help you organize information before you write your first draft.

PREWRITING STRATEGIES covered in this lesson

• EXPLORE TOPICS USING STORY STARTERS
• Mind Mapping

USING STORY STARTERS CAN HELP YOU JUMP START YOUR THOUGHTS

Often the hardest part of writing a personal narrative essay is choosing what to write about.  Unless you are given a very specific prompt, such as write about the most important person in your life and how they have impacted your growth , it can be challenging to choose an experience.  Try using a few of the following sentence starters or all of them to generate a list of personal experiences you could describe in your essay.  Once you generate a list of topics, choose the experience that is most interesting to you.

• My best day ever... or My worst day ever...
• The day my best friend and I met each other...
• My life was almost ruined when...
• My most embarassing moment happened when...
• A neighbor helped me... or I helped a neighbor....
• I remember a time I overcame a challenge and...
• When I was born...
• I told a secret, and... or My secret was revealed...
• I was afraid, but...
• The most exciting thing that has ever happen to me is...

Choose one of these sentence starters to begin your personal narrative, or if you have another experience in mind, start by freewriting for five to ten minutes or longer.

FREEWRITE 

Once you write the first sentence, you can use freewriting to generate more informaton about that chosen moment in your life.  The key to freewriting is to continue writing continuously for a set amount of time.  I recommend using a timer, so you don't need to look at a clock as you write.  Write, even if specific details don't come to mind at first.  Here's my example:  When I was born ... Actually, I don't  remember much about when I was born, but my parents told me that I was born a month early.  I was premature according to my folks and my birth records confirm I weighed 4 lbs,. 2 oz.  My lungs were slighty underdeveloped and I had difficulty breating.  I remained in the hospital until I gained weight.  Once I was ovr seven pounds, my parents were allowed to take me home.  The had to build a tent around my crib and keep a humidifier on in side th tent to help my breathe easier  Later, I was diagnosed with asthma.

Freewriting is also known as stream-of-consciouness writing.  The important part is to keep writing, even if some of the details of a moment in your life come from what others have told you about the experience.  Writing about those details may trigger your own memories. Also, do not worry about grammar, spelling, or the mechanics of writing at this prewriting stage.  Just write!  The goal is to write down as much as you can remember about the experience from you own memories or from the details others have shared with you. 

Brainstorming  is when you freely write down all ideas about your topic in the order which the thoughts come to you.  So, after you choose an experience, complete your first sentence using a sentence starter, and/or freely write about the experience for a few minutes, you can use brainstorming techniques to write down more information about any moment in your llife.  There are several brainstorming techiniques. Listing, clustering, and mind mapping are three popular methods of brainstorming.

Listing is a helpful technique to use when your topic is broad.  Your personal life experience is a very broad topic, and you need to narrow the topic to a memorable experience that made a lasing impression.  To make a list of possible experiences, start by making a list of your life experiences that brought you the most joy, experiences that brought you pain (physical, emotional, or social), experiences that helped you grow, and experiences that changed your perspective.  You can either keep writing your narrative about the experience generated from the sentence starter or you can choose a more impactful experience for the listing exercise.  Never be afraid to throw out the first idea for you essay for a better, more interesting idea.

PRACTICE EXERCISE:  Make a list of at least ten experiences that have contributed to your personal growth and development.  Here's my short list:

• Receiving my first journal as a birthday gift in second grade and beginnging to write poems
• Baking chocolate chip cookies with my tutor to learn about fractions and ratios
• Traveling to another country for the first time, while I was in h.s.,  and staying with a host family
• Being a NC Teaching Fellows, Honors Student, and Black Student Union President and UNC Charlotte
• Becoming a disciple of Jesus and deeply studying the Word of God
• Being a member of the Bouncing Bulldogs International Jump Rope Team
• Moving to Florida and becoming a title processor, working in the real estate industry
• Teaching at Children's Comprehensive Services of Charlotte and PACE Academy
• Joining the Visioneers Toastmasters Club and participating regularly in club meetings
• Giving birth to my son at the age of 38

Most of these experiences are still too broad for a personal narrative essay, since I have multiple stories I can share for each.  Listing can also be used to narrow the focus for a particular experience.  Here's a demonstration:

Selected experience:   Traveling to another country for the first time, while in h.s., and staying with a host family

A list of how I matured through the experience:

• I traveled with a team, so I learned how to work cooperatively with others to share our skills.
• I was a junior in high school, and I was paired with an elementary school student to stay with two different host families during the week-long trip.  So, I learned to be responsible for guiding a younger student, set a positive example, and to be flexible.  I also learned to trust others outside of my family.
• I learned to enjoy and appreciate other cultures, as we attended cultural events and dwelled with two families living on the island of Bermuda.

I could narrow this list of experiences that occurred on the island of Bermuda to focus on a particular event.  For example:  I traveled with a team to Berrmuda when I was a junior in high school to share our skills by:

• turning Double Dutch and traveler for members of the Bouncing Bulldogs and Double Dutch Forces teams, during school performances for Diabetes Awareness Week on the island
• teaching primary school students jump rope skills during workshops throughout the week
• developing new routines that members of both teams could perform for members of the island community

You can keep creating more focused lists (subllists) until you have enough specific detials to write the initial draft of your personal narrative.

MIND MAPPING

Mind mapping  is a more visual brainstorming technique. It can be used to help you think about a particular personal experience more deeply, and well as help you organize details into main topics and subtopic.  You can create a mind map in three easy steps:

• Start in the middle of a blank page , writing or drawing (a picture of), the personal expereinc you intend to write your essay about.
• Write down the related subtopics around the central experience , connecting each of them with a line.
• Repeat the same process for the subtopics , generating leveled subtopics, connecting each of those supporting details to the corresponding subtopic.

Watch the video tutorial provided in this lesson's resource library on "How to Create a Mind Map" , then use the Simple Personal Mind Map Template to create your own mind map for the personal experience you selected.

Once you have applied one or two of these prewriting strategies, use your list(s) and/or mind map to begin writing the first paragraph of your personal narrative essay.  Look for themes present in your list or in the topics presented on my your mind map which can help you formulate your thesis.

Attached Resources

Listing Memories  

How To Create a Mind Map Tutorial  

T-Chart  

File size 70.3 KB

Simple Personal Mind Map Template  

File size 87.9 KB

Craft Your Best Tale: 55 Prompts for Narrative Writing

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on September 5, 2023

Categories Writing

You’ve got a story to tell, but where do you start? That’s where prompts come in handy. As a narrative writer, they’re your secret weapon for beating the blank page blues. They’ll ignite your creativity, spark fresh ideas and get those words flowing.

Let’s dive into the world of narrative writing prompts – why they’re crucial, how to use them effectively and even how you can create your own.

Ready to unleash your storytelling potential?

Key Takeaways

• Narrative writing prompts enhance creativity and spark fresh ideas.
• Prompts help overcome writer’s block and provide a starting point for storytelling.
• Unconventional prompts push boundaries and encourage out-of-the-box thinking.
• Prompts improve the overall quality of storytelling by challenging and provoking writers to make every word count.

55 Prompts for Narrative Writing

Here are 55 prompts for narrative writing:

• Write about a time you tried something new.
• Describe your favorite childhood toy.
• Write about a memorable trip or vacation.
• Tell the story of the day you met your best friend.
• Describe a time you overcame a fear.
• Write about a time you felt brave.
• Tell the story of the day you got your first pet.
• Describe a memorable experience you had with a family member.
• Write about a time you learned a difficult lesson.
• Tell the story of a time you got lost somewhere.
• Describe your most prized possession.
• Write about a time you felt proud of yourself.
• Tell the story of a memorable birthday or holiday.
• Describe an experience that changed your life.
• Write about a time you stood up for someone else.
• Tell the story of a difficult decision you had to make.
• Describe a memorable experience you had in nature.
• Write about an accomplishment you worked hard for.
• Tell the story of a time you failed at something.
• Describe a memorable teacher who influenced you.
• Write about a time you experienced a different culture or place.
• Tell the story of a time you overcame an illness or injury.
• Describe a favorite place from your childhood.
• Write about an experience that made you grow as a person.
• Tell the story of a time you made an important discovery.
• Describe a memorable act of kindness done for you.
• Write about a time you got blamed for something you didn’t do.
• Tell the story of a time you witnessed something amazing.
• Describe a memorable concert or performance you attended.
• Write about an experience that brought your family together.
• Tell the story of a time you stood up to a bully.
• Describe a memorable experience you had as part of a team.
• Write about a time you saw one of your role models in person.
• Tell the story of a time you overcame a cooking, baking or crafting disaster.
• Describe your most memorable birthday.
• Write about a time you learned from someone very different from yourself.
• Tell the story of a time you got lost in a new place.
• Describe a time you felt completely out of your comfort zone.
• Write about an experience that made you feel grateful.
• Tell the story of a memorable prank or practical joke.
• Describe a time you achieved a goal through hard work.
• Write about a time you stood up for what you believed in.
• Tell the story of a time you bonded with a pet or animal.
• Describe a place you visited that exceeded your expectations.
• Write about an experience that made you grow in maturity.
• Describe your most memorable holiday tradition.
• Write about a time you got lost somewhere new.
• Tell the story of a time you made an important discovery about yourself.
• Describe a memorable act of generosity you witnessed.
• Write about an experience that gave you hope.
• Tell the story of a time you made an unlikely friend.
• Describe a time you felt completely happy and carefree.
• Write about an experience that taught you an important life lesson.
• Tell the story of a memorable day you spent with your family or friends.

Understanding Narrative Writing

It’s essential to grasp the concept of narrative writing as it’s one of the core skills in storytelling. You are the architect, and your words form bridges connecting your audience to a world you’ve crafted.

The narrative structure is your blueprint; it shapes how your story evolves. Imagine each scene like a stepping stone, leading readers through an engaging path of story evolution. It starts with exposition, setting up your world.

Then comes rising action, building tension that grips their attention. Climax hits next, where all tensions explode into peak conflict. Following this heart-pounding moment is falling action, easing towards resolution before reaching denouement – the final resolution.

Mastering this structure paints captivating narratives that reel readers into returning for more stories spun from your pen.

Importance of Prompts in Narrative Writing

You’re about to dive into a refreshing discourse on how prompts can become your secret weapon in narrative writing.

Imagine, if you will, harnessing the power of these subtle cues to enhance your creativity and give your narratives an undeniable edge.

We’ll explore together how prompts not only stimulate creative juices, but also work wonders in boosting the overall quality of your storytelling.

Enhancing Creativity With Prompts

Prompts can truly enhance one’s creativity, pushing boundaries and encouraging out-of-the-box thinking. Don’t see prompt limitations as restraints; instead, use them as a springboard to dive into the pool of your imagination. You’ll be surprised how a single line can inspire an entire narrative.

Now, let’s talk about unconventional prompts. They’re not your usual ‘describe this’ or ‘write about that.’ They might ask you to create a world where the sky is green or imagine life from a cat’s perspective. Unusual? Yes. Challenging? Definitely. But they awaken parts of your creative mind you didn’t even know existed!

Prompts Boosting Narrative Quality

Through tackling unconventional challenges, you’ll notice a significant improvement in the quality of your storytelling. It’s all about prompt selection and how it influences your narrative structure. Picking an out-of-the-box prompt can push you into unexplored territories of creativity, refining your narrative crafting skills.

Imagine selecting a prompt that nudges you to write from the perspective of an ant or a gust of wind. Suddenly, you’re not just telling a story; you’re creating an immersive experience for your readers. Your narrative structure becomes more intricate as you weave stories within stories capturing microscopic details or the fleeting nature of wind.

Prompts are like secret weapons for improving narrative quality. They don’t just guide; they challenge and provoke, making every word count in your storytelling journey.

Types of Narrative Writing Prompts

Imagine you’re standing on the edge of a narrative cliff, ready to dive into the ocean of writing below.

You’re about to explore two intriguing types of prompts that can guide your plunge: personal experience prompts and fictional scenario prompts.

Personal experience prompts pull inspiration from your life’s tapestry, spinning stories out of threads you’ve already woven.

Fictional scenario prompts whisk you off to uncharted territories, challenging you to build narratives in worlds born from imagination.

Personal Experience Prompts

You’ll find that personal experience prompts can really help you delve into your own history and memories for a unique narrative. These prompts can unlock the emotional impact of past events, making your writing more engaging and relatable. The key lies in careful prompt selection. Choose those that stir deeply-felt emotions and evoke vivid images.

• A childhood memory that shaped who you are today
• An encounter that challenged your beliefs or values
• A mistake from which you learned an important lesson
• A moment of triumph or defeat

Remember, it’s not just about recounting events; it’s about exploring their significance and drawing out their essence.

Fictional Scenario Prompts

Fictional scenario cues are a different beast altogether. They’re designed to stimulate your imagination and inspire you to create engaging tales out of thin air. They help you breathe life into your characters, molding them with depth and complexity for character development. You’re the puppeteer controlling their actions and reactions, their growth, making them relatable and intriguing.

Your plot twists aren’t just dramatic turns in your narrative but serve as catalysts that push change in your characters, ensuing suspense that keeps readers on edge. You weave intricate webs of unexpected revelations using these prompts as guides.

How to Use Prompts for Narrative Writing

It’s essential to know how to use prompts effectively when tackling narrative writing. You’ve got to master Prompt Selection and maintain the Narrative Flow. Here are four pointers for you:

• Understand your prompt: Make sure you’re clear on what it demands before diving in.
• Plan your plot: A good prompt paves the way for a compelling narrative. Map out your story first.
• Go with the flow: Let your chosen prompt guide but not limit your creativity, maintaining an organic Narrative Flow.
• Practice makes perfect! Use different prompts regularly and see how they shape your narratives.

Generating Your Own Narrative Writing Prompts

Now, having explored how to effectively utilize prompts in narrative writing, let’s take a step forward.

Imagine creating your own innovative narrative prompts! No more prompt limitations or being stuck with conventional themes. It’s time for you to challenge the norm and delve into the world of unconventional prompts.

Picture this: a parallel universe where cats rule humans, or perhaps an antique watch that transports its wearer through time. You’re not just confined to ordinary scenarios – think big, think outlandish!

High School Narrative Writing Prompts

Diving headfirst into the realm of high school narrative writing prompts, you’re about to embark on a thrilling exploration. This journey will take you through personal experience prompts, imaginative scenario prompts, and reflective writing prompts. These prompts are not just random words on paper; they are unique tools. They have the power to unlock your creative potential and give voice to stories that only you can tell.

Personal experience prompts can really help you delve into your past and uncover meaningful narratives. They’re not just stories – they’re pieces of you, laden with emotional impact that reveal the cultural narratives intertwined within your life.

Consider these innovative prompts:

• Remember a time when you felt intense emotion. How did it shape your actions?
• Think about an event from your cultural background that significantly impacted you.
• Recall a moment when you challenged a belief or norm in your culture.
• Unearth a memory that’s changed how you view yourself.

Each prompt urges introspection, inviting you to journey through forgotten corridors of your personal history.

Imaginative Scenario Prompts

Shifting your focus to imaginative scenario prompts, you’ll find they’re an excellent tool for unleashing creativity and exploring the bounds of your storytelling abilities. These prompts aren’t constrained by reality; instead, they invite you into a realm where anything is possible. They challenge prompt limitations, pushing beyond conventional boundaries to ignite your imagination.

With scenario variations that span across genres and realities, you’re empowered to build worlds untouched by the mundane. What if humanity discovered an alien civilization? Or if you could travel through time? By placing you in extraordinary circumstances, these prompts demand innovative thinking and original narrative constructs.

You’ll weave tales filled with vivid details and engaging twists, honing skills essential for any writer’s toolkit.

Reflective Writing Prompts

Having delved into the fantastical world of imaginative scenarios, it’s time to switch gears. Let’s embark now on a reflective journey, a more intimate form of narrative writing.

Reflective writing prompts offer you a chance for emotional exploration. They invite you to dive deep into your thoughts and experiences, unraveling layered emotions and insights.

Here are some intriguing prompts that will guide you towards meaningful self-discovery:

• Reflect on a moment when you felt truly alive.
• Write about an encounter that changed your perspective in life.
• Describe an experience where you had to make a difficult decision.
• Narrate an event that tested your resilience.

Embrace these prompts as opportunities for introspection. Remember, each word penned down is another step closer to understanding yourself better.

College Level Narrative Writing Prompts

In college level narrative writing prompts, you’re often challenged to delve deeper into your own experiences and perspectives. You’ve got to navigate the complex process of prompt selection while maintaining an engaging narrative structure.

Picture this: you’re sifting through countless prompts, each one a possibility, a story yet untold. It’s not just about picking what’s easiest; it’s seeking out something that sparks your interest, stirs your emotions.

Once you’ve secured your prompt, then comes the narrative structure. This is where the magic happens – shaping your experiences into a compelling storyline that hooks readers from start to finish. You’ll mold tension and release it at just the right moments. It’s an exercise in introspection and creativity – all rolled into one.

Prompts for Personal Narrative Writing

You’ve mastered the art of college-level narrative writing. Now, it’s time to delve into personal narratives. Personal narratives are a fantastic way to explore your own emotional impact and character development.

Personal narrative prompts encourage you to reflect on past experiences with emotional depth. They also encourage you to focus on instances that have shaped who you are today. Additionally, these prompts invite you to explore your internal character development and use authentic emotions to create powerful pieces.

Remember, these prompts aren’t just for self-exploration. They’re also an opportunity to engage readers through relatable experiences. They help others understand your perspective and maybe even find bits of themselves in your story.

Fictional Narrative Writing Prompts

Let’s shift gears and explore fictional tales, an exciting realm where your imagination can run wild. With fictional narrative writing prompts, you’re given the liberty to construct otherworldly scenarios or weave complex characters. Your prompt selection plays a pivotal role here; it sets the trajectory of your narrative structure.

Imagine being handed a prompt that goes, ‘An alien has landed in your backyard.’ Suddenly, you’re not just yourself anymore: you’re an earthling diplomat navigating interstellar relations right from your lawn! And thus begins the whirlwind journey of crafting your narrative structure—determining how events unfold, controlling pacing and tension.

Overcoming Writers’ Block With Narrative Prompts

As we leave the lands of fictional narrative prompts, you’re now stepping into an arena dedicated to overcoming writer’s block. That pesky problem that often leaves us staring at a blank page, right? Well, bid it goodbye. We’ve got your back with our Block Busters and Prompt Perspectives!

• Block Busters: These aren’t just prompts; they’re like little hammers designed to smash through any creative barrier!
• Prompt Perspectives: Changing your view can sometimes be all it takes to get those words flowing again.
• Personalized Prompts: Tailored to suit your style and stimulate your imagination.
• Categorized Prompts: Sorted by genre or theme for easy navigation.

This innovative approach will not only kickstart your writing but also keep you engaged throughout the process. So, are you ready to conquer that dreaded writer’s block?

Creative Ideas for Narrative Writing Prompts

Diving into the sea of creative ideas for crafting engaging tales, you’ll find a treasure trove of inspiration. The artistry in ‘Prompt Selection’ is not just about picking an interesting idea, it’s about finding a prompt that kindles your imagination, making the process of writing an exciting journey.

‘Prompt Adaptability’, on the other hand, requires your narrative to be flexible enough to accommodate changes. It’s like building a ship capable of weathering any storm and still reaching its destination. You’ve got to challenge yourself, push your boundaries, and let your creativity flow freely.

Review and Practice: Exercises With Narrative Prompts

You’re now ready to review and practice with exercises that’ll challenge your storytelling prowess. These exercises focus on narrative prompts, particularly prompt limitations and unconventional prompts.

• Challenge yourself by creating a story from a prompt with tight limitations – perhaps only three characters allowed or a single setting.
• Push the boundaries of your imagination using unconventional prompts, like beginning your story in the middle or writing from an object’s perspective.
• Do freewriting for 15 minutes using one of these challenging prompts and see where it takes you!
• Reflect on how dealing with such constraints can enhance your creativity instead of stifling it.

This practice will not only sharpen your writing skills but also deepen your understanding of how interesting constraints can open up new storytelling possibilities.

So, you’ve journeyed through the realm of narrative writing prompts. You now understand their importance and variety, how to use them, and even craft your own.

With these tools in hand, writer’s block won’t stand a chance! So go on, dive into that creative pool and let your imagination run wild with innovative narratives.

Remember, practice makes perfect – so keep writing!

Writing Workshop: Everything You Need To Know To Create an Anchor Chart

1. writing workshop: anchor charts 101, 2. everything you need to know to create an anchor chart for writing workshop, 3. writing workshop: everything you need to know to create an anchor chart.

“I don’t have room for all these anchor charts in my classroom.”

Does this sound familiar?

I often found myself repeating this over and over again as a classroom teacher. And then, I’d wonder:

             What kind of anchor chart should I make?              How can I elevate the level of my anchor charts?             How long should I keep an anchor chart up?

Keep reading for the answers if you’ve ever asked yourself these questions.

Anchor charts are an essential tool used to support instruction.

As you teach, you use your anchor charts to capture strategies that students can refer back to during mini-lessons , small groups, and independent writing time . Anchor charts also help build a culture of literacy by making the thinking visible as well as supporting all different learners within your classroom (i.e., visual, auditory, ELLs).

Anchor charts are typically created in real-time with students during a mini-lesson. They can display both student and teacher thinking by including teacher and student writing samples.

Then, you can display them on the wall for students to refer back to. Make sure to update them throughout the school year. Read more below about the many different anchor charts you can create to enhance your teaching and student learning.

Types of Anchor Charts

1. Procedural Anchor Charts

Use procedural anchor charts to highlight routines and systems within your Writing Workshop block. You’ll likely introduce these charts at the beginning of the school year when launching the workshop. You can create a chart for each new routine or system you want to teach or revisit old ones that need extra practice throughout the school year. You can use the anchor chart in the image for primary grades (K-2) to establish a Writing Workshop set-up routine.

2. Writing Behaviors Charts

Writing behavior anchor charts highlight behaviors we want our writers to build into habits. As your writers become more sophisticated throughout the school year, you want to make sure that your behavior charts match the level of your writers. You can use the anchor chart below to help establish stamina. Students can visibly see their goal as well as their progress as they work on building their stamina.

EXPERT TIP: Once your students build a writing habit, you can retire the anchor chart.

3. Individual Strategy Charts

Individual strategy charts focus on a single writing strategy. They aim to break down the strategy into clear, bite-sized steps that you’ll model during the teach section of a mini-lesson. Each unit of study cycles through the writing process (generating, choosing/developing, planning, drafting, editing, revising/elaborating).

Along the way, you introduce your writers to different strategies within each part of the writing process. The right anchor chart focuses on the writing process’s generating portion. It introduces a single strategy students can use when generating ideas for a true story. While you teach using your anchor chart, it’s key that the words you use match what’s on the anchor chart. Example: Saying true stories on your chart but using the term ‘small moments’ while you demonstrate.

4. Menu of Strategies Charts

If you’re introducing several additional strategies within that same part of the writing process, you can build a menu of strategies anchor chart. Unlike a zoomed-in strategy chart, a menu of strategies chart has several methods to select from. These charts give students the power to make their own decisions as to which one they want to use in their writing. The anchor chart to the left has five different strategies that

students can choose from when generating ideas for a personal narrative.

EXPERT TIP: Once you’ve introduced a strategy to add to the menu chart, you can retire the individual strategy chart.

5. Process Charts

Process charts are an excellent way to set your students up for independence by supporting them in understanding where to go next in their writing. These types of charts highlight a certain part of the writing process within a genre and can be displayed throughout a unit of study.

EXPERT TIP: Make small samples of anchor charts for students to keep in their writing folders.

6. Characteristics of the Genre Charts

Genre charts highlight characteristics of a genre, such as topics, text features, structure, tone, and author’s purpose. You can make these charts during the immersion week when highlighting craft moves and techniques of a specific genre. The anchor chart to the right highlights the characteristics of narrative writing.

7. Exemplar Piece Charts

This chart is a key lever during immersion week. You can also create it with your writer’s input. It highlights the characteristics of a strong writing piece. The chart is a living, breathing document which students can revise as they learn more about the genre and develop their level of sophistication. The anchor chart below highlights certain characteristics of an informational writing piece, such as catchy subtitles, pictures, and captions.

EXPERT TIP: While students are editing and revising, it can be helpful to reintroduce this chart and remind them what they can approximate from other writers!

8. Checklists Charts

Editing checklist charts help students monitor their progress during the revision and editing process. Make copies so students can refer back to them in their folders. Often, students will be in different stages of the writing process, so it’s helpful to have something to reference. These charts can be revised as students learn more throughout the unit and learn more sophisticated skills.

Expert Tips for Effective Anchor Charts

There are many different ways to improve your anchor charts. Below are three ways you can elevate your anchor charts.

1. Add visuals: One way to raise the level of your charts and support your learners is to add visuals. This is essential for our primary readers and writers to be more independent when using charts. These visuals ideally match your teacher demonstration piece. For example, if you are writing about using a big feeling, such as being excited to generate small moments you can write about, include a visual of those feelings on the anchor chart. You can also include drawings, print out clipart, or add photographs of your student doing the steps or process.

2. Include examples from mentor texts: You can include examples from mentor texts that have already been introduced and read to your class. These examples can be photocopied and placed directly on the chart.

3. Include writing samples demonstrating the writing strategy: Writing samples can be either teacher or student created. These can be used on anchor charts to show a model example of the strategy.

Anchor Chart Maintenance

Anchor charts are most helpful when students see and use them! Make sure you have a designated place in your room to display your workshop charts. It’s useful when all writing charts are together in one area. When using anchor charts during Writing Workshop, make sure to display them in a clutter-free space in your gathering area.

Once you have introduced your chart during your mini-lesson, you should be referencing it consistently throughout and every time you state the teaching point. Following your mini-lesson, keep the anchor chart visible for all students to reference as they work independently. This also allows you to reference the charts while conferring, in small groups, and during partnership work. You can also refer to the chart at the end of the workshop during the teaching share.

Decide if you’ll display or retire the chart by surveying your writers. If you retire a chart and you have the space, keep it. If not, take a picture of it. If you continue to display the chart, place it in a clutter-free, prominent spot designated for workshop charts. You can create smaller versions for students to put in their folders or keep them at the writing center.

EXPERT TIP: A great way to know when to retire a chart is to survey your students and ask, “who uses this chart?” If a small number of students use the chart, you can make smaller individualized copies for those students and take down the original.

Whether you’re just getting started with creating anchor charts or have been doing them for a while, hopefully, some of these ideas might be helpful for you as you think about which type of anchor charts you can make, how to elevate your anchor charts, and how long you should keep an anchor chart up.

Keep exploring with these articles:

• Setting Up a Writing Center: 8 Basics
• The Writing Process for Primary Grades
• Supporting English Language Learners in Writing Workshop

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September 18, 2018

Personal Narrative Brainstorming Ideas: Map and Emotional Moments

I like to give students different ideas for generating ideas for writing personal narratives. It’s tempting to rush in to writing, writing, writing…but slow down and give them time to find the moments that are going to engage them in drafting, revising and beyond.  Click here to access the PDF. 

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• April 1st, 2024
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Generative AI in Creative Fields in 2024

Creativity and innovation are being dramatically reshaped by the incredible advancements in generative AI. The integration of artificial intelligence in creative fields is now a vivid reality, transforming how art, music, literature, and design are conceived, created, and consumed. This evolution is not just altering the toolkit available to creators but is also redefining the boundaries of creativity itself.

In recent years, the emergence of AI as a partner in the creative process has been both exhilarating and thought-provoking. From AI-generated art that rivals human creativity to algorithmically composed music that stirs the soul, the capabilities of generative AI are pushing us to reconsider what it means to be a creator in the digital age.

In this article, we'll explore the current state of generative AI in creative fields in 2024, highlighting groundbreaking projects, the evolving role of the artist, and the societal implications of this technological leap forward. 

What is Generative AI?

Generative AI refers to algorithms and models that can generate new content, be it text, images, music, or even ideas, that haven't been explicitly programmed into them. Unlike traditional AI, which might predict the next word in a sentence based on its training, generative AI can create entire paragraphs, artwork, or melodies from scratch, often with minimal input. It's like having a muse that not only inspires but also participates in the creative process, offering outputs that can sometimes astonish even the most seasoned creators.

How does generative AI work?

The magic behind generative AI lies in its intricate networks and algorithms, particularly in models known as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and Variational Autoencoders (VAEs). These models are trained on vast datasets, learning patterns, styles, and structures inherent in the data. 

GANs, for instance, work through a fascinating process of push and pull between two neural networks—the generator, which creates new content, and the discriminator, which evaluates this content against the training data. This iterative competition drives the generator to produce increasingly sophisticated and realistic outputs.

How Generative AI Is Changing Creative Work?

The impact of generative AI on creative work is profound and multifaceted. For artists and creators, it opens up new vistas of expression and experimentation. Lots of artists collaborate with AI to produce stunning visual art that merges human emotion with algorithmic precision, creating pieces that resonate on a deeply personal level yet carry an unmistakably unique signature.

In writing, generative AI tools have become collaborators, helping authors overcome writer's block, generate ideas, or even co-write stories. This partnership between humans and machines is redefining the very act of storytelling, making it a more inclusive and expansive endeavor.

Moreover, generative AI is democratizing creativity, making tools and techniques available to a broader audience. Individuals without formal training in art or music can now explore their creative impulses, guided and aided by AI. This democratization is not just about making creation easier; it's about unlocking the creative potential within each of us, challenging the notion that creativity belongs only to the traditionally trained or innately talented.

Applications of Generative AI

Every application, from art to scientific research, underscores the transformative power of Generative AI technology. It's a reminder of how generative AI is not just a tool for creating and discovering but a lens through which we can glimpse the future of human creativity and innovation. Here are the most common areas of application:

1. Art and Design

One of the most visually striking applications of generative AI lies in the fields of art and design. Artists and designers are leveraging these tools to create stunning visuals, patterns, and artworks that might take a human counterpart weeks or months to produce. 

It's not just about speed; it's about introducing a new form of collaboration between human and machine intelligence. This synergy enables the creation of pieces that are not only beautiful but also carry a depth of complexity and novelty that's genuinely breathtaking.

2. Music and Sound Production

In music, generative AI is hitting all the right notes, transforming the way melodies are composed and produced. As someone who dabbles in music, witnessing AI algorithms compose pieces that resonate with human emotions is utterly fascinating. 

These AI systems can generate music in various styles and genres, offering artists and producers a bottomless well of inspiration and a new set of tools for experimentation and expression.

3. Writing and Content Creation

Generative AI has also made significant strides in writing and content creation . From drafting articles to composing poetry, AI tools are now capable of producing written content that's increasingly difficult to distinguish from that written by humans. 

This doesn't mean AI is replacing human writers, but rather, it's offering a new way to overcome writer's block, generate ideas, or even draft initial content that writers can then refine and imbue with their unique voice and perspective.

4. Gaming and Interactive Media

In the gaming world, generative AI is revolutionizing how environments, narratives, and characters are developed. Game designers are using AI to create dynamic, evolving worlds that respond to player actions in ways previously unimaginable. 

This not only enhances the gaming experience but also opens up new avenues for storytelling and player engagement.

5. Scientific Research and Innovation

Beyond the realms of creativity and entertainment, generative AI is playing a pivotal role in scientific research and innovation. It's being used to model complex systems, simulate experiments, and predict outcomes, accelerating the pace of discovery in fields ranging from pharmaceuticals to environmental science. 

The ability of AI to sift through vast datasets and identify patterns and connections that might elude human researchers is a game-changer, paving the way for breakthroughs that could reshape our world.

Benefits and Challenges of Generative AI

The potential of generative AI to enrich our lives and solve complex problems is immense, but it requires a concerted effort to harness its power responsibly. As we move forward, our goal should be to create a future where generative AI serves as a force for good, amplifying human creativity and ingenuity while safeguarding against its potential pitfalls.

Benefits of Generative AI

Unleashing creativity.

One of the most exhilarating benefits of generative AI is its ability to unlock new dimensions of creativity. It serves as a muse and a collaborator, offering creators a palette of possibilities that were previously unimaginable. This technology empowers artists, musicians, writers, and designers to push the boundaries of their craft, blending human intuition with AI's capability to generate novel ideas and patterns.

Accelerating Innovation

Generative AI is a catalyst for innovation, dramatically accelerating the process of ideation, experimentation, and discovery. In fields like drug development and environmental science, it can sift through vast datasets to identify patterns and predict outcomes, leading to breakthroughs at a pace that would be impossible for humans alone. This acceleration is not just about speed; it's about the capacity to explore a broader set of possibilities and solutions to complex problems.

Enhancing Productivity

The efficiency and productivity gains offered by generative AI are undeniable. Whether it's drafting content, creating prototypes, or generating code, AI tools can perform tasks in seconds that might take humans hours or days. This efficiency allows creative and professional individuals to focus on the more nuanced aspects of their work, where human insight and empathy are irreplaceable.

Challenges of Generative AI

Ethical and moral considerations.

The rise of generative AI has ignited a flurry of ethical and moral questions. Issues of copyright, authenticity, and the potential for creating misleading or harmful content are at the forefront of the discourse. Navigating these waters requires a thoughtful approach, balancing the benefits of generative AI with the need to protect intellectual property and prevent misuse.

Impact on Employment and Skills

There's a palpable concern about the impact of generative AI on employment, particularly in creative fields. As AI becomes more capable, there's fear that it might replace human roles. However, my perspective is more optimistic; I see generative AI as augmenting human capabilities rather than replacing them. The challenge lies in adapting our skills and education systems to prepare for a future where AI is a tool, not a competitor.

Technical and Security Issues

With the adoption of generative AI, technical and security challenges abound. Ensuring the integrity of the data used to train these models, protecting against biases, and safeguarding against malicious use are critical issues that must be addressed. These challenges underscore the importance of robust, transparent AI governance and the development of secure, ethical AI systems.

This 2024, it's evident that we're at the dawn of a transformative era, where the convergence of artificial intelligence and human ingenuity is unlocking unprecedented opportunities for creativity and expression. The integration of generative AI into the arts has not only revolutionized traditional practices but also democratized creativity, making it more accessible to diverse voices worldwide. 

Despite the challenges and ethical considerations that accompany its adoption, the potential for positive impact is immense. As we continue to explore this dynamic technology, the collaboration between creators and AI promises to redefine our understanding of creativity, fostering a future where technology amplifies human potential, paving the way for innovations that we have yet to imagine.

Featured image by ilgmyzin on Unsplash

Georgi Todorov

Tags: ai artifical intelligence generative ai

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