ENGL101 Jewell – PERSONAL NARRATIVE
Rough draft due Thursday January 16 – Final draft due Tuesday January 21
The first essay project for ENGL101 is a personal narrative that focuses on some learning experience you have
encountered in your life. The purpose of the essay is to get you to think about style, organization, form, and
audience while writing about a topic on which you are already an expert: yourself. It is important to choose a
learning experience that was significant in some way, whether it is because of the change it encouraged in you, the
value of the lessons learned, or the personal impact made by the teacher.
Remember that the job of a narrative is not to merely tell your reader what happened, but to show your reader
what happened and why it was important. Consider your audience to be generally educated and diverse; the
students in this class and I are a good model, and your job as a writer is to both clearly convey the experience and
to engage us with the writing, offering a captivating hook or introduction, a logical progression throughout, and a
satisfying conclusion that touches on the significance of the experience narrates. To do this well, you will have to
analyze the experience by asking questions about, taking it apart, deciding what matters, and making meaning
from it (we like to call that answering the “so what?” question).
Please follow these formatting instructions: in the upper left corner, please include your name, the course and
section number, and the date your completed paper is due; the essay must be double-spaced, use 12-point Times
font, and be formatted with 1” margins; your essay must be no fewer than two and no more than three pages.
Grading Rubric
Process (rough drafts, peer review, proper format)
Grammar, spelling, and punctuation
Message/significance
Specific details and vivid, descriptive language
Focus, organization, and transitions
TOTAL
10 pts
10 pts
20 pts
30 pts
30 pts
100 pts
ENGL101 Jewell – PERSONAL NARRATIVE
Rough draft due Thursday January 16 – Final draft due Tuesday January 21
The first essay project for ENGL101 is a personal narrative that focuses on some learning experience you have
encountered in your life. The purpose of the essay is to get you to think about style, organization, form, and
audience while writing about a topic on which you are already an expert: yourself. It is important to choose a
learning experience that was significant in some way, whether it is because of the change it encouraged in you, the
value of the lessons learned, or the personal impact made by the teacher.
Remember that the job of a narrative is not to merely tell your reader what happened, but to show your reader
what happened and why it was important. Consider your audience to be generally educated and diverse; the
students in this class and I are a good model, and your job as a writer is to both clearly convey the experience and
to engage us with the writing, offering a captivating hook or introduction, a logical progression throughout, and a
satisfying conclusion that touches on the significance of the experience narrates. To do this well, you will have to
analyze the experience by asking questions about, taking it apart, deciding what matters, and making meaning
from it (we like to call that answering the “so what?” question).
Please follow these formatting instructions: in the upper left corner, please include your name, the course and
section number, and the date your completed paper is due; the essay must be double-spaced, use 12-point Times
font, and be formatted with 1” margins; your essay must be no fewer than two and no more than three pages.
Grading Rubric
Process (rough drafts, peer review, proper format)
Grammar, spelling, and punctuation
Message/significance
Specific details and vivid, descriptive language
Focus, organization, and transitions
TOTAL
10 pts
10 pts
20 pts
30 pts
30 pts
100 pts