Personal Narrative Writing Assignment for 9^th Grade Honors

Rough Draft Due:  August 31, 2009

2^nd Draft:  September 4, 2009

Dr. Gingrich

In the excerpt from A Summer Life (1990), Gary Soto reflects about the experiences of his guilty six-year-old self.  He describes a particular experience, a specific moment in time from his youth, and then analyzes how this experience shaped his adult conception of guilt and sin.  For this assignment select a particular experience from your life which has affected you in some way and write a personal narrative of (750 to 1000 words) in which you incorporate each of the following components.

1).   Describe the event as thoroughly in detail with vivid imagery

2).  Explain how this event has shaped your view of yourself today

3).  Select an event from one of the summer readings

          October Sky by Homer Hickam

             Color of Water by James McBride

             Riding the Bus with My Sister by Rachel Simon

            A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel

            A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

4).  Compare your experience with the experience of the narrator in the autobiography.  The experiences which you compare should involve similar themes or issues.

Your essay will be graded on

Development

Style

 Vividness of description and detail, 

Completion of comparison with summer reading work

Depth of reflection on the degree to which the experience shaped your life