Narration Reading and Revision Activity

Narration In Our Genes

For the purposes of this class, when I use the technical term "narration" I'm simply talking about a person telling stories. Think to yourself: when was the last time you told a story? Have you told a roommate about what you did last weekend? Have you narrated the antics of your crazy professor? Have you passed on the embarrassing moment your friend had on a recent date? The point is that humans tell stories so often that if you have interacted with anyone today, chances are you've told a story.

We tell so many stories, in fact, that one scholar has suggested that instead being known as homo sapiens, humans could be called homo narrans: animals distinguished from other species because of our ability to translate experience into narratives. This scholar further points out,

"Oral narrative, or what we call storytelling in everyday speech, is as much around us as the air we breathe, although we often take its casual forms so much for granted that we are scarcely aware of them. It is also an ancient practice. The early Greeks called it mûthos, a word that we often translate "myth" but that encompassed storytelling in many forms. To judge from the cuneiform records of ancient Sumeria, the papyri of early Egypt, the earliest bamboo and bronze inscriptions of ancient China, and other records that have come down to us from the dawn of European and Asian civilization, oral narratives . . . have been part of human experience for as long as verbal records exist."

--John D. Niles, Homo Narrans: The Poetics and Anthropology of Oral Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, pgs. 1-3.

The Function of Stories and the Helpful Narrative

But the fact that storytelling is nearly universal among humans isn't the only interesting point. Storytelling also does something--it often plays a function for the storyteller and for the audience. One function that storytelling can play is to motivate. For example, Partnership for a Drug-Free America (links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) has posted the stories of recovering addicts as a way to encourage others to avoid drug use. Stories can also sell products as is shown by the teeth whitening stories on the About Cosmetic Dentistry (links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)webpage.

Another interesting example of the function of storytelling can be found in stories that are told to make sense of traumatic events. For example, if I ask you what you did on September 10, 2001, you probably won't remember. But where were you on the morning of September 11th? Most people can answer this question with great detail. For example, I was riding the London Underground, when a woman hugged me and told me to go home and turn on the TV. I did. And I was stunned (and still wonder today how the woman knew I was American? My Shoes?)

Different Types of Narration

When we hear the word "story," we immediately think of verbal narratives, things told to us. However, we can also think of other types of communication as being stories. For example, TV shows, movies, and songs all tell stories. The cliche "a picture is worth a thousand words" suggests that photographs are also stories. Even academic writing can be considered storytelling. In fact, one famous writer said that when English professors analyze the meaning of literature, they are producing the "stories we tell ourselves about our stories" (Orson Scott Card, "Fantasy and the Believing Reader." Storyteller: The Official Orson Scott Card Bibliography and Guide. Michael R. Collings. Woodstock, Ga.: Overlook Connection, 2001. 426).

How to Effectively Write Stories

Narration is likely a type of writing that comes easily to you because it's so involved storytelling. However, your paper shouldn't be written like you speak (we all speak more informally than we write). To learn more about the basics of writing narration, visit this link:http://www.roanestate.edu/owl/describe.html before moving on.

Beginning Revision: Harsh Truths to Think About

"I don't really revise," Marshall told me the other day. "I'm usually pretty happy with my first draft."

Always? I wondered.

"Well, certainly not always," he said. "But I know I work better under pressure so I usually just write stuff right before it's due. There isn't much time for revision at that point even if I wanted there to be."

To be blunt, Marshall's papers are usually OK, but I often sense a tentativeness in the prose and endings that seem much stronger than beginnings. It's like the paper is making promises it isn't keeping. He's a competent writer- fairly clear and without too many awkward passages- but it's ultimately disappointing. He'll get his grade and be forgotten.

I tell you this because, if you have a process like Marshall's, there's a very good chance that this will apply to you too. I hear the above critique from professors (not just English professors) all the time, and the sad thing is that it's often about some of their favorite students. This is something that a lot of teachers won't tell you, because nobody likes to hear that they're "just OK" at something. I've seen hundreds of students get through college like this.

Now this isn't necessarily a problem. You shouldn't feel like you've done something wrong if you think the above applies to you. If anything, you've done something right. You're getting an education and expressing yourself in many thoughtful and important ways. You've made room for writing in your life, and you should be commended.

If you've found a writing style that works for you and gives you results, I encourage you to stick with it. I just think it's important to realize that many of the memorable students are the ones with attitudes about writing that don't really fit the above description. They rush out a crappy first draft, often with a pencil or even just a half-diagram on the back of an assignment. Then they clean it up so that it looks somewhat like a paper, and then they spend weeks working on it. They chip at it, a little bit here and a little bit there, until they're ready to let someone read it. Then they fix it again. After all that, they hand it in and their professor remembers them.

Hotspotting

This reflective writing activity is predominantly used for revising drafts, but it can be useful in writing and thinking about other texts you read for class-your peers' and other authors'.

1. Open up your latest draft of the personal narrative.

2. Reread the draft, marking (underline, highlight, star, etc. in Word) places where you think your writing is working. Try and find at least 3.

This could be a sentence that expresses a thought-provoking idea, a strong or startling image, a central tension, or a place that could be explored in more detail. These places are the "hot spots" of your draft.

3. Copy one of these hot spots onto the top of a clean page; then, put your draft aside. (If you are working on a computer, copy the passage and paste it to a new document). If the passage is long, you can cut it out of the original or fold the draft so only the hot spot shows.

4. Now write, using the hot spot as a new first sentence (or paragraph). Write for fifteen to twenty minutes, or as long as you need to develop your ideas. Don't worry if you "lose" your original idea. You might be in the process of finding a better one.

5. Repeat the process as often as feels right. (shoot for 3 times)

6. Now put your piece back together. You might want to just add the new writing into the piece or substitute it for something you can now delete. You might even take out large sections of the original writing and reorganize the rest around your new writing. Consider how your conception of the "whole" of this draft changes with the new material.

7. I'll be looking for a page labeled, "Hot Spots" with some entries among your drafts that are turned in with the final.