Creating An Outline For A Personal Narrative Essay In 4 Steps

Writing a personal narrative essay requires a certain style of voice. In this type of writing, the student must tell the story of an experience from their life. Like any good storyteller, the student must bring their tale to life through expressive words and descriptions of the scene.

The Pre-Writing Stage

In this portion of the writing process, the student needs to consider the type of story that they want to use. The student may want to use a tale from a recent vacation or a story about a time when they overcame adversity. Even if the story is a short one, it can still make for an excellent narrative essay. The main goal is to find a narrative that helps to build an emotional connection with the reader.

Outlining the Assignment

Before writing a single word of the personal narrative essay, the student should first create the outline. By making an outline, the student can make sure that they have developed a logical order for their paper. It also helps to prevent writers' block because an outline will clearly show what will come next. The outline should include the thesis statement for the introduction and a topic sentence for each paragraph. In essence, the topic sentence will be a miniature thesis statement. While the thesis statement shows the main idea of the entire story, the topic sentences demonstrate the specific concepts of individual paragraphs.

Creating the First Draft

Once the student has completed their outline, they are ready to begin the first draft. Unless the teacher says otherwise, a personal narrative should be written using a first person point of view. The student actually experienced the story, so words like “I” or “me” are perfectly fine. While the student writes, they should incorporate vivid descriptions so that the reader feels like they are withing the story. They should focus on making the story come alive by including the sounds, sights, tastes and feelings that were experienced.

Edit Thoroughly

After finishing the first draft, students are often tempted to submit their essay. Although it may look complete, the assignment is far from finished. To get a top score, students need to carefully read through their writing to weed out spelling issues, grammar errors and typos. Even if the student wrote an excellent story, it will not receive a top grade if the document is full of mistakes. If the student is unable to spot all of the mistakes, they can always ask one of their classmates or their teacher for extra help.