Narrative Essay: “The Eye of the Storm”

Things I Did Well:

  • Description/Visual

I’m quite proud of how I described the event and that I was successful in helping the reader visualize it. I used to have a lot of trouble in providing good descriptions and showing vs telling, so I’m very happy that I apparently did it quite well in my narrative essay.

  • Voice

As someone who has done quite a bit of writing in the past, I know how hard it is to maintain your own voice in your writing, especially doing an essay. There sort of has to be a sense of formality, and it’s really easy to dissolve into long words you never typically use and start to tell the story from a perspective that isn’t your own. I think I managed to maintain my point of view during the essay and tell the story the way I saw it happen and how I felt about it at the time (and how I still feel about it), while still keeping it from becoming conversational.

Things I Can Improve:

  • Purpose

I understand my purpose of writing the essay might have been a bit vague – I’ve always had trouble in conveying the message of the story. I don’t want to explicitly state it, but I should probably try to hint at it a bit more. When we verbally tell stories, we don’t really focus on the meaning or lesson we learned from the experience, but instead focus on telling it in the most interesting way possible. I’m also a bit more used to journalism articles and humorous writing now, so it was difficult to put myself in the mindset of “I’m writing something important”.

  • Conciseness

The first draft of this was probably about 1000 words. I cut down a lot, but I realize in trying to describe a lot of stuff, I lose the point of the story. I’ve definitely become a lot better with being concise and effective in my writing over the years (“cutting the dead wood” as you say), but there is absolutely still work to be done!

 

BONUS:

What the classroom looked like when we left (all necessary layers of brick for walls, floor completed, inside walls covered. What rests is the roof and indoor decor.)

 

What the classroom looks like now – second from left. (Currently in use for children between grades 1 – 8.)


Images courtesy of @tylerknott and banksy and me and @metowe