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#Post#: 2--------------------------------------------------
Outside Reading Assignment #1 - Personal Narrative
DIR By: MrLyon
Date: September 5, 2012, 9:49 pm
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For your first outside reading assignment, please search the
Internet for a personal narrative or personal essay that
contains adult-level subject matter, word choices, and language
conventions/techniques. After reading your narrative, provide an
in-depth analysis of your selected piece of literature based
upon the "magnificent seven" traits of strong writing. In what
way does the narrative's author use ideas, organizational
techniques, sentence structure, word choices, voice, and
mechanics in order to convey meaning and illuminate purpose?
What choices has the author made to help make his/her work
successful?
The "Outside Reading" subpage on the class website contains all
requirements for outside reading assignments; as a reminder,
your analysis must be 300 words at an absolute minimum and
should make numerous references to specific portions of the text
(including individual words and sentences from the narrative) to
back up your points.
Please also remember to include a link to the narrative in your
response so that others can find your selected piece of
literature.
#Post#: 3--------------------------------------------------
Re: Outside Reading Assignment #1 - Personal Narrative
DIR By: cblock13
Date: September 6, 2012, 5:50 pm
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In this personal narrative, the purpose the author wrote this is
to tell the reader that thinking outside the box and doing
something different could possibly award you at the end. In the
line “I slipped on that black robe and left Christine behind”
shows that when the author felt comfortable to do her
presentation, a different person came out of her. It was no
longer the shy girl, and was a new Christine that found her love
of acting through her English class presentation. A reader could
tell the author either didn’t like to write or didn’t know how
to use a sense of creativity because of the line; “being
creative wasn’t one of my favorite things in the world.” Being
creative paid off in the end for the author because she ended up
receiving an award.
The tone of this narrative seems to be humorous. The imagery
that is used entertains the reader with the way the author
displays Christine when she giving her presentation. Her
enthusiasm allowed her to feel comfortable and her audience
tended to engage with her; “I started the presentation with a
jolt, making clear the enthusiasm in my voice. Before I knew it
the class was laughing and participating in my presentation.”
The author uses imagery when the describing Christine’s
nervousness, that soon changes to energetic. By the end of the
narrative, not only did Christine get over her stage fright, she
found a new love, acting. A reader wouldn’t conclude at first
that the whole English class presentation was a flash back. The
reward was for her acting. The whole narrative was about how she
found her love for acting. The thing that I concluded when I
first read this narrative is that the author is religious. Not
only from the title, but from “I could present my report like a
gospel minister.”
HTML http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/tourElement.cgi?element_id=29018&tour_id=15574&category_id=24353
#Post#: 4--------------------------------------------------
Re: Outside Reading Assignment #1 - Personal Narrative
DIR By: cblock07
Date: September 8, 2012, 4:03 pm
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The personal narrative I read was called On Mother's Day by
Ellen Ratner. In this personal narrative there is a woman who
turns into a foster mom. The day it happened was on Sunday, May
13th is Mother's Day .This woman has a son who is a teenage boy
from south Sudan named Ker, who was blinded by his Arab slave
master. The author uses many ideas in this piece of writing. One
way is that she explains her ideas very well. She really gives
supporting details to back up each idea. The author's story is
also very organized. It was easy to follow along.The author also
mentioned what had happened in the past that lead up to the
future. Her sentence structure is easy to follow. The way she
wrote each sentence is connected back to the title of the story.
The author usues good word choices. She used good vocabulary,
and its set for adults to understand what is going on. It is set
up as adult style reading. When I read this personal narrative
it sounded like the author was really telling me the story. I
could feel everything she said. It was like she was talking
right at me. She made the personal clear understand, and easy to
follow along. The best thing she said was "it is a different
holiday for me this year as I am now a foster mom." That quote
really shows how the story started. She also mentioned "being a
mom had challenging, it is a very hard job" That shows how her
life has changd very much.
HTML http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/05/07/on-mother-day-heart-made-by-mothers-in-south-sudan-for-your-mom/<br
/>
#Post#: 5--------------------------------------------------
Re: Outside Reading Assignment #1 - Personal Narrative
DIR By: cblock11
Date: September 8, 2012, 7:16 pm
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I read the personal narrative The Doctor’s Office. In this
specific personal narrative the author uses word choice to
create a sense of sadness and sympathy for narrator in this
piece. Using the words “I was starting to forget what it felt
like to be normal”. In this piece the author finds out she has
Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which has causes her
to becomes tired easily, have aching jointing, get dizzy or
nauseas. In the doctor’s waiting area she finds a picture of a
girl running, laughing with a bit of mud on her dress. This
particular picture stands out to the author because the author
longs to feel the way she used to. The author longs “to be
normal”, which to her is not getting tired and being able to run
and have fun just like the girl in the photo. Not a lot of
people may know how it feels to have this disease so when she is
describing it and she talks about being normal the reader can’t
help but feel sympathy for the narrator. The narrator has the
most positive attitude when going into the doctor’s office,
believing that she can conquer whatever is wrong with her. But
when she finds out that she may not be able to be normal, the
reader can feel the pain and feels sympathy because the author
will not know how it feels.
After reading this narrative the message that I received out of
it, is that inner strength is the greatest form of strength a
person could have. If someone isn’t optimistic than that means
that they might not try as hard and or fail at what they are
doing completely. Where as someone who is highly optimistic
would be able to always find the bright side of things and if
things don’t go as planned then they can always change. This
personal narrative has inspired me. The girl in this won’t be
able to do everything to the best of her ability with CFS, but
she looks on the bright side of things, wants to live her life
to the fullest even though she has CFS. “At that pivotal moment,
[she] realized that [she] may not have all of my physical
strength like [she] had before. But that wouldn't mean that
[she] couldn't live and experience life any less than anyone
else. Along with faith she and others had in [her], along with
faith in [herself], [she] would be able to live life to the
fullest. Although [she] may not have a tremendous amount of
physical strength, [she] definitely would have enough inner
strength that would get me a lot farther. All [she] would have
to do is smile.” The CFS may slow her down, but she will always
continue fighting, and eventually reach her goals, be who she
wants to be, and do what she wants to do.
HTML http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/tourElement.cgi?element_id=29018&tour_id=15574&category_id=24353
#Post#: 6--------------------------------------------------
Re: Outside Reading Assignment #1 - Personal Narrative
DIR By: cblock10
Date: September 9, 2012, 12:17 pm
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The story I read, Time for a Change by A.A.’s, purpose, was to
show that change isn’t always easy to start. Her need to grow up
becomes obvious after she acts under her age. Immaturity is
shown when she says herself that “…Mr. Haderlie would just look
at me… and leave me to figure it out on my own…. He knew as well
as I did that if I’d relax and concentrate, I would be able to
figure things out for myself.” She is like a child just looking
for someone to look over her shoulder and reassure her instead
of doing it alone. Later on she screams and rebels against her
mothers authority despite afterwards thinking “Even if I
disagreed, I could at least show some respect for her attempt to
do SOMETHING with the mess of out house.” Knowing that rebelling
is wrong, she does it anyways because she acts before she
thinks. These are all characteristics of a child, not a 17
year-old high schooler.
The tone is stressed and there are three words that support
this: ALWAYS, ANYTHING, and SOMETHING. Always shows that she
doesn’t know what to do with herself when she feels she still
needs help with chemistry homework. Anything is used and
symbolizes that she starts to feel a change and tries to resist
it when she “…ran to the shelves and, screaming, attempted to
put all of [her school materials]… exactly where I[she] had left
them.” SOMETHING allows us, the readers to understand something
must be done, but no one in that house knows what. With each
word we can feel she is becoming more and more stressed.
The organization and sentence fluency are fine; the story is
basically one strange day with logical events happening in a
correct order. The sentences make sense and can be seen leading
into the next. The word choice is basic, but has some words like
adjoining, nuzzling, monotone, and comatose state wouldn’t
really be used by children under high school. That shows some
variety and sophistication in the author’s vocabulary, but not
so much that the image of a high school child is lost. The
author keeps the same central idea throughout her story, it is a
weird day and she keeps on reminding us,”…something was
different.,” her “…backpack seem so much heavier?,” “…my feet
moved more clumsily and the class seemed less focused.”. We see
that she isn’t quite herself that day, and then when she gets
home she realizes she needs to change. It all enforces her need
to change, but not being able to really start without being hit
with realization.
HTML http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/tourElement.cgi?element_id=29018&tour_id=15574&category_id=24353
#Post#: 7--------------------------------------------------
Re: Outside Reading Assignment #1 - Personal Narrative
DIR By: Cblock08
Date: September 9, 2012, 1:48 pm
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The personal narrative that I read was Top Chicken by Katie
Jaques. In this personal narrative it illustrates the fast and
exhilarating contests between elementary school kids during
recess and shows the importance of recess during childhood.
Katie is fourth in her line for the monkey bars. She’s going
against a girl named Julie Grovner. Katie believes that it is
going to be an easy point for her side. Her team is ahead but
only by two. The organization is clear and her paragraphs are
properly placed to help move the writer through the story. When
she starts each paragraph, it gives the reader a feeling that
they’re a bystander. In the beginning of the fifth paragraph
Katie Jaques creates that feeling. “The shouts are deafening
now.” Besides the clear organization, the voice that she uses
throughout her personal narrative is confident. Katie makes it
clear that she can’t lose her reputation and from the shouts
that she gets makes her want to win even more. The word choice
is rich and very detailed. Katie Jaques lets the reader picture
the race between her and Julie and also uses imagery to show the
success of her completing the monkey bars without falling.
“Emitting a loud squeal, Julie drops to the charcoal turf
ashamed and slowly hobbles over to her own side unacknowledged.”
Also the author uses metaphors to describe the monkey bars. “I
climb up the side ladder and take hold of the overhead bars,
slippery as iron snakes, hanging like suspended railroad tracks
against the cloudless ten o’clock sky.” While imagery helps the
reader picture themselves their, the sentence fluency also
helps. When you read the story out loud, your heart races while
Katie and Julie move swiftly across the monkey bars. You feel
the pressure as Julie’s hand slips off one of the monkey bars
and as Katie is racing ahead. I believe that the sentence
fluency is what makes this story better and more appealing to
the audience. The presentation of Top Chicken was not very
captivating. The personal narrative was in blue font and on a
yellow background. To me, this made the story less engaging.
While all these traits might have made the story better or
worse, it showed the importance of childhood and illustrates the
fast and exhilarating contest between kids at recess
HTML http://teachers.sduhsd.k12.ca.us/kburke/personal%20writing%20examples.htm
#Post#: 8--------------------------------------------------
Re: Outside Reading Assignment #1 - Personal Narrative
DIR By: cblock04
Date: September 9, 2012, 2:49 pm
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The personal narrative titled “Lost Wallet” is a story about a
person named Ellie Stricklen who understandable loses her
wallet. A wallet or purse can be sacred to some people, it
carries some of our most important possessions, including money,
credit cards, and personal information. Losing such an object
can be devastating and nerve racking. I think this story is
good because so many people can relate to it. Despite the
relativity to the real world this essay had many flaws such as
the sentence “This person could stay hold these feelings for a
long time.” The grammatical mistakes and less advanced
vocabulary used shows that the author did not take much time
writing this narrative and might not have cared very much about
it. This narrative is meant to be read as humorous because the
author uses words like “fiasco” to exaggerate the seriousness of
the situation and the story is not written as if this devastated
her. “Since that single event, I have lost my wallet two other
times, none as serious as before” she seams calm about losing
her wallet again which puts the reader at ease, especially if
the reader ends up in a situation like this. This narrative is
organized correctly with proper paragraph placement to break up
different parts of the story, which makes the narrative flow
well and easy to read. I did not like how some of the words in
the narrative were clickable and highlighted blue, this was
distracting to the eye and made it slightly harder to read.
This narrative delivers the reader a simple lesson “think before
you act” as cliché as this sounds the author has used this
lesson to help avoid future mistakes like this one. I think
overall this was an average personal narrative because it seems
that little effort was put into it.
HTML http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=25932
#Post#: 9--------------------------------------------------
Re: Outside Reading Assignment #1 - Personal Narrative
DIR By: cblock03
Date: September 9, 2012, 4:19 pm
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The personal narrative I read is called Killing for Fun. The
story was about the narrator and his friend Mitchell. During the
summer, they were bored of doing the same thing every year and
decided to sneak out with a rifle that belonged to the father of
Mitchell and go shoot stuff. In the process, they killed baby
birds. One of the first things that caught my attention about
this story was the ages of the narrator and Mitchell. They were
only thirteen years old at the time. Being only thirteen years
old and sneaking out with a rifle that you aren't supposed to be
using is a horrible thing to be doing. But, they were both
young, bored, irritated, and had a lot of energy to burn off.
That could be a reason that they went out even though they may
have known they shouldn't. I think that is one of the ideas this
story is talking about. When people are younger, they will do
things that they shouldn't. They may not know the harm that cold
be done. In this story however, the kids knew what they had
done, but tried to hide anything to do with it. This is
something that people will think about constantly as they grow
up and mature more. These two took the lives of four baby birds,
and that will be something that you won't forget about.
The narrator also used vivid words to describe the chicks. Since
the story is about something that happened in the past, he could
describe it better. "Underneath lay three naked pink corpses,
staring up at us silently with wide dark eyes and wide,
underdeveloped, faintly yellow beaks." This one sentence creates
imagery and is very detailed. When I read this line, I was able
to picture in my head what the narrator and his friend were
seeing. Also, the narrator being able to describe it this well
goes to show that this is something that you will always
remember. It doesn't say how much older he is now, but the image
is still fresh in his mind.
HTML http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/tourElement.cgi?element_id=29018&tour_id=15574&category_id=24353
#Post#: 10--------------------------------------------------
Re: Outside Reading Assignment #1 - Personal Narrative
DIR By: cblock12
Date: September 9, 2012, 5:15 pm
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I read a narrative called "Time for a Change" by A.A. This
narrative was about a girl that lived in a normal town, and had
a normal routine every day. But one day she felt different. The
way she explained the difference between today and the last, was
more of a gloomy depressed outlook. I can relate to this because
some days just feel more stressful and overwhelmed than any
others. The girl in the narrative feels like her mother is
screaming more, her brother is acting more irritated, and her
homework is harder. This is a common effect of teenagers when
they have a lot going on and when some days they feel like they
are so overwhelmed that they can't handle it. The girl also
mentioned the fact that her Chemistry teacher is never there for
the help that she feels like she always needs. She says "On the
way to school, I thought about why I was going early. I had to
get help with my chemistry homework; I ALWAYS needed help with
chemistry. But I knew that Mr. Haderlie would just look at me
the way he always did and leave me to figure it out on my own. I
guess he knew as well as I did that if I’d relax and
concentrate, I would be able to figure things out for myself."
This shows that this girl is too stressed to deal with things by
herself and need others help and encouragement to keep going
with not just Chemistry, but everything. This is using Chemistry
to show how she really feels; stressed, angry with herself, and
maybe just in an overall bad mood. Maybe this character was just
in a bad mood and took everything that isn't going her way and
looked at it as a bad thing and started feeling bad for herself.
I can relate to this because sometimes things don't go my way
and I stress about everything and feel like nothing is going my
way. This narrative's main point is to take the reign in life,
and realize as you start to grow up things may not go your way,
but you just have to deal with it and realize something better
is on its way, because it can only get better.
HTML http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/tourElement.cgi?element_id=29018&tour_id=15574&category_id=24353
#Post#: 11--------------------------------------------------
Re: Outside Reading Assignment #1 - Personal Narrative
DIR By: cblock06
Date: September 9, 2012, 7:12 pm
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The personal narrative I read was called "Killing For Fun." The
personal narrative was about a boy and his friend Mitchell who
were bored during the summer because their annual summer
traditions became boring and dull. When they sneaked out to the
woods with Mitchell's father’s rifle and found many things to
shoot such as a birds nest. They killed four baby birds with the
rifle. The author's word choice made the story very interesting
because of when he described the birds that had fallen from
their nest, "Underneath lay three naked pink corpses, staring up
at us silently with wide dark eyes and wide, underdeveloped,
faintly yellow beaks. They looked as if they had tiny holes in
each tiny body." This explanation creates a very detailed image
of what the baby birds looked like after they fell from the
tree. The author's voice at the beginning of the personal
narrative creates a playful and young tone because they are only
thirteen years old and naive of what they could actually do.
Because they are young they don't know what exactly they should
and shouldn't do. They didn’t know that what they were doing
would cause harm to something. They both knew that they harmed
the birds and they shouldn't have done it. The author's voice
becomes sad when the author describes the birds when they fall
from the tree and when he explains what they look like after
they get hurt. The sentence structure is very complex with the
detailing of what they did with the birds and after they hurt
them, "I could see that Mitchell was repulsed by the sight, but
being a thirteen-year-old boy he refused to show it. He made an
attempt to maintain a hunter's attitude, and fiercely drove
pellet after pellet into the injured bird." The purpose of the
personal narrative was to show what young, naive, children can
do without knowing that they are harming something. The picture
created by imagery will be a memory for the author and will
always create a picture in our minds of how this story happened.
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