Narrative Paper Assignment

Narrative Writing Brainstorming Activity

	Idea 1	Idea 2	Idea 3
Story/Experience (1-2 sentence description)
Specific incident(s) you will write in your narrative. The incident should have taken place over a short period of time, such as a few minutes, hours, a day, or a few days.
Why was this event important to you? Or, why is this event important for others to read about?
Answer two of the following: What did you learn about yourself, others, or life in general from this event? How did you change as a result of this event? How did you feel at the time, and what is your present perspective of the situation?
What do you want to illustrate to your readers through this story? In other words, what specific message, or insight, or moral lesson do you want to convey to readers?
Who would learn or benefit from reading your narrative, and why? Who might be interested in reading your story? Why? What kind of attitudes, perspective, or background do they have?

Sources of potential significant events:

· An incident that changed you or that reveled an aspect of your personality (such as initiative, insecurity, ambition, jealousy, or heroism)

· A difficult situation (e.g., when you had to make a tough choice and face the consequences, or when you let someone down or someone you admired let you down)

· An occasion when things did not turn out as expected (e.g., when you expected to be criticized but were praised or ignored instead, or when you were convinced you would succeed but failed)

· An incident in which a conflict or a serious misunderstanding with someone made you feel unjustly treated or caused you to mistreat someone else

· An experience that made you reexamine a basic value or belief (such as a time when you were expected to do something that went against your values or had to make a decision about which you were deeply conflicted)

· An encounter with another person that led you to consider seriously someone else’s point of view, that changed the way you viewed yourself, or that altered your ideas about how you fit into a group or community

· An event that revealed to you other people’s surprising assumptions about you (as a student, friend, colleague, or worker)