Matakuliah
Tahun
Versi
: Writing III
: 2006-2007
:3
Pertemuan 4
Narrative
1
Learning Outcomes
• By the end of this session the students are
expected to be able to
– explore ideas by free-writing
– choose which details to be included
– understand what narrative paragraph is
– to recognize adequate development in
narration
2
Outline of Materials
•
•
•
•
Free-writing technique
Necessary or unnecessary details
Narrative paragraphs
Developing the narrative paragraph or
essay
3
Free-writing
• Free-writing is writing about a topic for a fixed
period of time without worrying about grammar,
spelling, or organization.
• The purpose is to explore a topic and gather
ideas
• You can later select the parts that you need and
delete the rest
4
Necessary Details
• Having done your writing freely, you must now
read it again to eliminate unnecessary details.
• You can ask yourself, “What is my main point?”
• Then (re)-write your topic sentence
• Look at the rest of the paragraph, what details
are important to support you main idea, and
which are not. Cross out those which do not
support it.
• Ask focused questions to develop your ideas.
5
Narrative Paragraphs
• Narrative is the type of writing used to tell
a story, or an event in our lives in the past.
• The description of the event should be as
vivid as possible
• Usually, a narrative text use first personal
pronoun I, or we, but it can also be she/he.
6
Developing Narrative Paragraphs
• There are two kinds of development:
– Background information
This is to give readers information on where
or when the story took place.
– Supporting details
Readers need details, especially sensory
details, to support the writer’s main point.
7
Tenses
• When you write a narrative paragraph you
use mainly past tenses
• Example:
When I was in college, I kept wondering what
kind of work I would do after graduation. I talked
to my sister several times and she invited me to
come see her in the capital, Bogota. Most of all,
I needed to learn what companies were there
and how I could find a job there.
– From Engaging writing page 32
8
Conclusions
• A writer can generate ideas by free-writing
• After that, the writer can select necessary
or unnecessary details from his/her text
• Asking focused questions can help the
writer to get more ideas
• Narrative is a type of writing that tells a
story
• Narrative is usually written in past tenses
9