Personal Writing Autobiographical Incident

1. Personal WritingAutobiographical Incident Language Arts Mrs. Sellars

2. Personal and Expressive Writing Definition: Writing that conveys the significance of a writer’s ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

3. Principles of Personal Writing • Involve the reader in the story. SHOW DON’T TELL! • sensory details • vivid language • rhetorical devices • Although the main component of personal writing is the story, details must be selected carefully to support, explain, and enhance the story.

4. Principles of Personal Writing (contd.) • The Autobiographical Incident: • Explores an experience important to the writer and shows why it was important. • Draws the reader in at the beginning and concludes in a satisfying way. • Makes the setting clear-where things happen. • Gives a good sense of time, place, and character through vivid sensory details and possibly dialogue. • Helps readers follow the order of events in time.

5. Conventions of Personal Writing • Conventions of Personal Writing • Your story should be written in the first person. • 1st= I, me, my • 2nd= you • 3rd=he, she, it • Your incident should tell a story and have: • setting • characters • climax • conclusion: lesson, moral, closure

6. Potential Topics for Autobiographical Incident • Vacation • Birth of sibling • Injury • Meeting a new friend • Award • Moving • Sporting event • Surprise • Honor Roll • Death of someone special • Divorce

7. Examples of Memoirs

8. Examples of Memoirs

9. Examples of Memoirs

10. Excerpt from Soul Surfer • http://www.soulsurfer.com/story.html

11. Guidelines • Essay should be approximately 1.5-2 pages in length. Your essay cannot be more that two pages! • Effective dialogue must be present. • Use sophisticated vocabulary words. • Sensory details and rhetorical devices should be included.