Kim Woods

Project One: Narrative Essay

Home is a complicated concept, and yet in some ways the most fundamental. It connects to a lot of broader social issues, including culture, race, social class, and a host of others, both large and small. After all, our home environment shapes much of our understanding of the world, for good or ill, and is in many ways at the core of who we are.

For our first essay in ENGL 101, we are going to focus on writing a narrative about our homes. That is, you will consider and discuss your home, telling us a story about it. You may choose to focus on making a major move, on explaining the things you learned at home, or even on narrating your experience living with someone else. You may even choose a broader definition of home and narrate your experiences during Hurricane Katrina or the recent flooding or with another event/circumstance that happened in your home city. Whatever you choose, though, you MUST be able to explain why it is significant AND it must connect to the theme of “home.” It isn’t enough just to tell us the story—the story must have some application to others.

Getting Started: In this essay, you will explore the circumstances and effects of living in a particular place. The goal, then, is not only to tell a story or to describe an experience, but also to analyze your experiences and to draw conclusions about how your experiences at home shaped your understanding of or feelings, what your experience reveals about you or your world, and how others might relate to that experience.

After exploring your experiences through invention strategies, you will want to select and focus on a particular experience (or two, as long as these events are connected) to create a cohesive and coherent essay with a central point. You will also need to make decisions about which additional descriptions, background information, and vivid details best support the focus you’ve chosen. You will need to reflect on and analyze your past memory to understand the significance in order to reveal it in your text.

Rhetorical Considerations: The audience for your work is anyone who is unfamiliar with your background, experiences, upbringing, and/or culture. Therefore, you will need to develop your essay in a manner that will allow the reader to truly understand your experiences and attachments. The key is to ensure that each element of your essay “flows” by relating to—and supporting—your focus.

Putting It Together:  Your tone and voice should be appropriate for your subject matter and audience.  Do not forget a unique and attention-grabbing title! Essays should be typed, double-spaced, in Times New Roman. Follow MLA formatting for documents.