Chapter 6 Narration

Chapter 6 of Patterns for College Writing discusses narration which they define as, "tell[ing] a story by presenting events in an orderly, logical sequence." Although narration can be used as a structural pattern for essays which are not primarily narrative, this chapter focuses on how narration can structure narrative writings such as biographies, personal letters, and even social networking sites. Narration can be used universally throughout all writing as it simply tells what is happening through chronological events. Additionally, not only does narrative writing help in personal narratives, it also helps to develop techniques of other forms of writing such as process essays or cause and effect essays. When planning a narrative essay, it is important to develop a thesis statement as well as pay attention to various factors such as sentence structure, details, and the chronological order of the events talked about in the essay. Details play a large role in the communicating narrative writing to readers because they help provide background and context of the events and allow the readers to observe the writing through the author's eyes. Furthermore, verb tenses are important because they show the sequence of the events and if they are used improperly can fail to indicate time shifts within the writing, which is why it is important that they are consistent. As stated in the previous chapters, narrative essays ares structured as follows: introduction including the thesis statement, followed by body paragraphs, and ending with the conclusion. When the narrative essay is completed, the writing must be both revised and edited for run on sentences, chronological order, significance, details, transitions, and various other aspects.

After reading this chapter, it definitely made me reflect on my narrative writing as well as self-analyze how these factors applied to my writing skills. For one, I think I could use some work on keeping my verb tenses consistent because although I am well aware of proper verb tenses when I write for long periods of time I have been known to be inconsistent without realizing it due to the lack of breaks. Also, the varied sentence structure portion of the chapter caused me to look back on my previous writings and see that I often use the same sentence structure or transitions.One part which stood out to me in this chapter was the peer editing worksheet regarding narration because I made a mental note to refer back to this in case my peers do not know what to look for when asked to revise my writing.