PERSONAL NARRATIVE – 100 points
What is a personal narrative? A narrative is story, so a personal narrative is a story about
your personal experiences. You wrote a letter to yourself about what it means to attend
Purdue and what you hope to accomplish here. Now you must mine your memories and
write about a defining moment in your life that led you to be the person you are today,
someone studying engineering and participating in EPICS. Many students cite their
family as the reason why they attended Purdue. Why? Think of a representative moment
with your family that shows how important they are to you and why you wanted to follow
in their footsteps to Purdue. Other students know they wanted to study engineering since
they were young. Why? Think about why you want to pursue a career in your field and a
representative moment from your life that illustrates that. When did that “Aha” moment
happen and why? It could have happened when you were seven and it could have
happened last week. Maybe you never did have that “Aha” moment; if so, why are you
drawn to engineering? What about your personality or earlier successes leads you to
believe you can excel in this field? For this essay to be a success, it is imperative that you
make yourself and the other people in your life into fully-realized characters. Think of
your quirks, your families quirks, and all the things that make you, you.
You will need to use your skills of description and narration to pull your readers into your
story. Be sure to convey the significance of your story; make your readers care about
what you are saying. You never want your reader asking “So what?” when they finish the
last paragraph of your essay. You are writing this essay for several reasons. First and
foremost, you want to entertain your audience with a good story. So have fun with it!
Remember that the audience for this narrative will be both me and your classmates during
the peer review. Be yourself and trust your instincts. You will be investigating and
learning something about yourself as well. We learn unexpected and wonderful things
when we write, especially when we write things we don’t know that we know.
You will be exercising writing skills you already have: the muscles of narration,
description, focus, organization, structure, and so on. Like every good workout, writing
can be painful at the beginning, but if you stay focused and trust your instincts amazing
things will happen.
Length: 2 – 3 pages long, double spaced.
Format: Like everything else in this class, this essay must be written in the MLA format.
Please consult the MLA section of the OWL Online. The paper must be double-spaced,
1-inch margins, 12 point Times New Roman font.
Hand in your project in this order with a binder clip or rubber band:
 Final Draft
 First Draft
 The peer review you did electronically on someone else’s paper
 Your Pre-Writing and Planning (including any writing we do in class)
The parts of this project are due:
Tuesday, September 4th – First draft due. Bring in two hard copies for peer review
session.
Thursday, September 6th – We will read a partner essay and peer review in class. Be
prepared to discuss your comments with your partner.
Monday, September 17th – Hand in final Personal Narrative project. Bring in project (as
described above) to class, ready to hand in at the beginning of the hour. I will not accept
the assignment at the end of the class period, please be at this class and be there on time.
Tuesday, September 18th – Hand in Reflection of the Personal Narrative. Bring in a hard
copy of the Reflection to class and hand it in at the beginning of the hour.
The Personal Narrative assignment is worth 125/1000 points and the Reflection will
be worth 50/1000.