...Descriptive vs. Narrative Essays Camille Hall English 121 Instructor James Welch March 17, 2013 Descriptive vs. Narrative Essays Descriptive essays are much more detailed and expressive than narrative essays and are more apt to hold the reader’s attention by ejecting more emotion. The narrative essay uses detail to advance the story, while the descriptive uses to detail to describe an unfamiliar subject. The ability to describe something convincingly is always important to both the writer and their audience. Both descriptive and narrative essays use detail but for different purposes. In this essay I will compare and contrast two essays; “I Want A Wife” and “Caged Bird” in order to give insight into each type of essay. The aim of a narrative essay is to describe a course of events from a subjective point, is usually told in chronological order, and is usually written in first person. Narrative essays are used to tell a story in a way so that the reader learns a lesson or gains insight, much of this is done through lots of detail about the subject that is being written about. The best narrative essays are those inducing images in the reader’s minds about what's happening by using concrete, specific verbs and nouns rather than a lot of adverbs and adjectives. To write a narrative essay you will need to tell a story (usually about something that has happened to you) or it could be fiction. The purpose is for your reader to learn a lesson or gain insight of...
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...(Article) For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ped/summary/v004/4.2murphy.html Access provided by SULTAN QABOOS UNIVERSITY (29 Dec 2014 03:14 GMT) The Pedagogical Possibilities of Covering Gilman’s Wallpaper Karla J. Murphy In his introduction to The Pedagogical Wallpaper, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock notes how the pedagogical diversity of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” prompted him to collect essays for this book. He goes on to explain that “given the ubiquity of the text within various academic settings, I was also struck by the absence of attention to the text within pedagogical contexts. Despite the large (and steadily growing) body of criticism to the story, very little of it explicitly addresses its importance as a tool to facilitate learning or various ways in which to make use of the text in the classroom” (3). As a collection, Weinstock’s The Pedagogical Wallpaper contains informed, detailed, and diverse analysis that attempts to shore up the absence of “pedagogical possibilities” concerning Gilman’s transgressive short story (9). Among the contributors are a MOO space specialist, a Gilman scholar, a queer theorist, an existentialist, a formalist, and several reader/student-response theorists. Because each essayist presents a distinct critical perspective on Gilman’s text, each essay is likewise concerned with “how the narrative teaches and how to teach the narrative” (5). Thus, it seems to me that Weinstock’s...
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...Which Essay is Better: A Narrative or A Descriptive? Ever read a story and say to yourself, “What’s happening?” Whenever I read a descriptive essay, that’s what I would say. In this essay I would be comparing and contrasting two types of essays, a narrative and descriptive. I have chosen “Are the rich happy?” by Stephen Leacock 1916 and “Sister Flowers” by Maya Angelou, n.d. By writing my essay, I want to give my views on each and decide which I would rather write. Narrative Essay A narrative essay reflects a personal opinion that is based on your own experiences. This helps you bring a reader into your very own mind and shows him/her the topic you’re writing about through your eyes. Telling a story or event the way it happened for you. It also could provide a sort of lesson or moral to be learned from the outcome of the story as well as what the writer did that contributed to it or not. It’s more on a personal level that any one reading could say that happened to them or that they learned from the story by not doing whatever it was that the writer did. In Stephen Leacock’s “Are the Rich Happy?” the author writes about his experiences with his friends, with of modest income. Most of it, all in his opinion, points out the problems or troubles those with an existential amount of funds in their bank accounts. He goes on to give some examples that he encountered several of his friends going through. “A friend of mine who has ten thousand dollars a year told me the other...
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...and solution, and persuasion and argument. ▪ Students review annotation acronyms, how to do a close reading, literary elements and rhetorical devices. Students also review the SOAPSTONE (subject, occasion, audience, purpose, speaker, tone, organization, narrative style and evidence) strategy for use in analyzing prose and visual texts along with three of the five cannons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement and style. ▪ Students learn the format of the AP test, essay rubric and essay structure. ▪ Students take a full-length AP test for comparison purposes in the spring. Reading: The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne Writing: Answer the following question in one paragraph. Use quotes from the novel as evidence. Some readers believe that the elaborate decoration that Hester embroiders on the scarlet letter indicates her rejection of the community’s view of her act. Do you agree or disagree? Explain your position using evidence from the text. (test grade) Writing: Write a well-developed essay addressing the following prompt. Document all sources using MLA citation. Compare Hester to a modern day person who has been shunned. Provide at least two research sources for the other person. (project grade) Reading: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Jonathan Edwards Analyzing: SOAPSTONE and cannons of rhetoric Reading: Teacher Introduction Essay Writing: Students and teacher evaluate where each student’s writing is and where it needs to be by analyzing...
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...Descriptive versus Narrative Chris Hathaway ENG121 Michelle Terashima January 27, 2014 Descriptive versus Narrative This essay is to compare-contrast a narrative and descriptive essay The essays I chose were, “Are the Rich Happy?” written by Stephen Leacock (1916) for the narrative essay and “Homeless” written by Anna Quindlen (n.d.) for the descriptive essay. The title of both essays is what caught my eye and the reason why I read them. Although, I enjoyed reading both essays, I felt the descriptive essay “Homeless” had more value and was the better read. Therefore, in this essay, I am going to compare/contrast the author’s purpose, the difference in their use of descriptive language, and the impact on the reader’s that each author intended to accomplish through the essay that they wrote. I also plan to show why, in the case of these two essays, I felt that the descriptive essay “Homeless” was the better read. One comparison of these two essays is the descriptive language they use. A narrative essay is written to tell a story. In the essay “Are the Rich Happy?” the author Leacock tells a story of his encounters with people he thought to be rich. He sarcastically tells the story using some vague descriptive language. His descriptions are not such that you can see or feel but, so that you understand who he is talking about, their expressions, and their lifestyles so that you can see the comparison he is making between the rich and the poor. In his essay he speaks of a man...
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...Descriptive versus Narrative This essay is to compare-contrast a narrative and descriptive essay The essays I chose were, “Are the Rich Happy?” written by Stephen Leacock (1916) for the narrative essay and “Homeless” written by Anna Quindlen (n.d.) for the descriptive essay. The title of both essays is what caught my eye and the reason why I read them. Although, I enjoyed reading both essays, I felt the descriptive essay “Homeless” had more value and was the better read. Therefore, in this essay, I am going to compare/contrast the author’s purpose, the difference in their use of descriptive language, and the impact on the reader’s that each author intended to accomplish through the essay that they wrote. I also plan to show why, in the case of these two essays, I felt that the descriptive essay “Homeless” was the better read. One comparison of these two essays is the descriptive language they use. A narrative essay is written to tell a story. In the essay “Are the Rich Happy?” the author Leacock tells a story of his encounters with people he thought to be rich. He sarcastically tells the story using some vague descriptive language. His descriptions are not such that you can see or feel but, so that you understand who he is talking about, their expressions, and their lifestyles so that you can see the comparison he is making between the rich and the poor. In his essay he speaks of a man who makes fifty thousand dollars a year and has told him with great frankness that it is impossible...
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...Literacy Narrative In: Other Topics Literacy Narrative I grew up in a very fortunate family; we never really had to worry about a low income, and we were able to buy extra stuff and go on other trips unlike other families. I never really understood how we were able to do this seeing as my parents did not go to college. They also rarely ever read; if they did it would be a magazine or an article online, and they never wrote. My parents would always push me to read more and always do well on my writing assignments and review them over and over again so they would be the best of my ability. Back then I never really understood why they would make me do all of this, but now that I am a bit older and understand how important these traits are, I understand why they did this. I’ll never forget my English teacher my junior year of high school, Mr. Stanizzi. He was the most inspirational teacher I have ever had in my life. He genuinely loved his job and made English class fun, and fascinating. By this time I thought for sure that no teacher was ever going to change my opinion on writing, but he proved me wrong. There was something he did while teaching and analyzing poems that really struck my interest. Every week we would have a period just focusing on either writing our own poems or analyzing them. There was one particular poem that I was extremely proud of and showed Stanizzi the poem. He was shocked that I wrote such a good poem. He liked my poem so...
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...Descriptive versus Narrative This essay is to compare-contrast a narrative and descriptive essay The essays I chose were, “Are the Rich Happy?” written by Stephen Leacock (1916) for the narrative essay and “Homeless” written by Anna Quindlen (n.d.) for the descriptive essay. The title of both essays is what caught my eye and the reason why I read them. Although, I enjoyed reading both essays, I felt the descriptive essay “Homeless” had more value and was the better read. Therefore, in this essay, I am going to compare/contrast the author’s purpose, the difference in their use of descriptive language, and the impact on the reader’s that each author intended to accomplish through the essay that they wrote. I also plan to show why, in the case of these two essays, I felt that the descriptive essay “Homeless” was the better read. One comparison of these two essays is the descriptive language they use. A narrative essay is written to tell a story. In the essay “Are the Rich Happy?” the author Leacock tells a story of his encounters with people he thought to be rich. He sarcastically tells the story using some vague descriptive language. His descriptions are not such that you can see or feel but, so that you understand who he is talking about, their expressions, and their lifestyles so that you can see the comparison he is making between the rich and the poor. In his essay he speaks of a man who makes fifty thousand dollars a year and has told him with great frankness that it is impossible...
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...TermPaperWarehouse.com - Free Term Papers, Essays and Research Documents The Research Paper Factory Join Search Browse Saved Papers Home Page » Religion Topics Bib104 In: Religion Topics Bib104 1. According to the text the structural features of 'repetition' and 'inclusion' are… 2. What is the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls? They gave us a much older collection of Old Testament manuscripts 3. According to the readings the Old Testament canon was completed after the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. 4. Old Testament narrative normally does not directly teach a doctrine. True 5. In our readings this week the Bible is described in part as, "the Word of God given in human words in history". True 6. The Modern View of the Bible approaches biblical documents as highly reliable. False 7. Until just after World War II the oldest OT manuscripts we had dated from about 200 B.C. / False 8. According to Fee and Stuart's analysis they think most people do a very good job of handling Old Testament narrative passages /False 9. The focus of the ___________ is on Jesus and his claim to be the Messiah. 10. Which of the following are not among the common causes people misinterpret biblical narratives mentioned in the text? 11. According to Fee and Stuart's analysis God is the hero of all biblical narratives/true 12. According to Fee and Stuart what is the antidote to bad interpretation? Good interpretation...
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...more sarcastic narrative. Arguably both writers do a great job in their story telling skills. Both stories are respected and pleasing, yet similar but different at the same time. The authors’ choice of writing style is what gives one story more of an advantage to the other. Though descriptive and narrative essay have identical intent – to tell the reader a story- narratives are more effective in capturing the audience because the uses of different voices, they bring ideas into perspective and they are relatable. There are special components that both style of writing possesses. Narrative writing usually does not stress adjectives to give the physical details of characters, setting or events in the story. Nothing like descriptive writing, narrative writings are written in the first person in order to convey the author's attitudes, beliefs and memories. Narratives are conventional, while descriptive writings content often emphases on a single event, object or place. Occasionally, writers utilize narrative writing style to tell about the past or the future in broad terms. A narrative often reflects personal experience, clarifying what happened during some sort of incident. Narrative essay topics include recounting an experience where the learned something significant, such as losing a tooth, first day of high school, or any type of life changing experience However, narration are not always a personal experience. Narratives are a form of storytelling. Narratives tend to have more...
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...When comparing Paul McHenry Roberts narrative essay "How to Say Nothing in 500 Words" and Maya Angelou's descriptive essay "Sister Flowers", Roberts essay holds superior because he uses 2nd point of person, relate-able topics, and problem solving strategies in his essay. By using descriptive language, an author has the power to tantalize their readers simply by word usage. Descriptive language "refers to words that are vivid, expressive, and highly specific to the topic" (Connell & Sole, 2013). For example, in the essay "How To Say Nothing in 500 Words", the author sets the mood by stating, "It's Friday afternoon, and you have almost survived another week of class" (Roberts, 2013). All college students, the author's intended audience, can relate to anticipating the weekend, and a break from the stresses of college coursework. In speaking directly to the reader, second-person point of view, the author, Paul McHenry Roberts, establishes an intimate connection. Roberts uses humor within the body of the essay as well, furthering the connection between himself and his audience. Roberts states, "All subjects, except sex, are dull until someone makes them interesting." (Roberts). He further goes on about how to set up a unique paper. Roberts lists examples of different topics throughout this essay. He creates an informative essay about writing on much-debated topics by thinking outside the box. As Roberts illustrates by stating" Picture poor old Alfy coming home from football...
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...Graduation Question 1: Presumably, all of Maya Angelou’s readers would have witnessed a graduation ceremony and brought their memories to her essay. How does she fulfill the reader’s expectations for what graduation includes? How does she surprise us with details we may not expect? When I started reading the essay, I felt like I was back in 2012 at my highschool graduation. I felt the excitement of being a part of the graduating class. It was the same feelings of nervousness and being anxious about things going wrong or tripping on the stage.The ending was exactly what I was looking forward to from the start. It ended with inspiration to keep pushing forward, which is how all graduations should end. I was not expecting the turn in events that took place because of my own blissful ignorance in forgetting how things were when these events took place. I was deeply moved by her classmate’s, Henry Reed, attitude to get everyone to overcome those feelings of inferiority and worthlessness that the author was feeling. Her ending brought tears to my eyes with hope, that maybe one day, we will reach the point of everyone realizing we are equals. Question 2: In paragraph 43 Angelou writes that “the ancient tragedy was being replayed”. What does she mean? How does her essay help to resist the tragic script?...
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...Emmanuel Obeng Professor Rosalie Yezbick LITR220 25 March, 2016 Course Reflection It has been an amazing eight weeks of intense but fun time learning about American Literature. There were some awesome topics, essays and readings that were my favorites. However, there were also some few topics that even though were interesting to read were my least favorite. The body of this essay is going to be talking about my three favorite as well as my three least topic, essays, forums and reading throughout the course. My first is Anti-Slavery and Slave Narratives in week seven forum, some of the challenges Linda Brent faced while she lived under Flint. While reading, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” it actually made me feel very sad for this...
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...Writing the literacy narrative was a very interesting experience. Not only did I learn more about how to implement sociological factors and bring in a second lens, but I also got the opportunity to write about a single event in detail. I would say that throughout the course of writing this narrative, I have enjoyed employing the five vivid senses the most. This holds true because I prefer writing in ways that have the capacity to evoke realistic feelings, much like Markus Zusak, the author of The Book Thief. Since this was the first time I have really written a narrative about an event related to reading and/or writing, it was difficult for me to even choose what to write about. Hence, I believe that the biggest challenge that came my way...
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...your instructor discover who you are as a writer. The essay will be used to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and it will allow the instructor the opportunity to identify grammatical, stylistic, and mechanical problems specific to each student. Do not fret over the idea that grammar, style, and mechanics will be evaluated in this assignment. This diagnostic writing exercise is merely one way to take a look at any particular patterns that exist in your writing. You will earn full credit for completing this assignment as long as you follow instructions. A narrative is a story that you tell to an audience for a reason. You can use your own experience or your role as an observer to frame a narrative, but the story itself should stir readers into thinking about and remembering their own stories. As children, we often seek out or create mysteries. Every town seems to have stories of haunted houses or swamp monsters. One reason might be that children have to learn how to conquer a fear of the unknown. Based on your own experience, that of someone else, or a tale from your own imagination, write a narrative essay that tells a story about conquering fear. Your essay should be 550 to 800 words. For the purposes of this essay, please do not worry about incorporating any external sources. For more information about how to write a narrative essay, please review the major elements that define narrative in Chapter 5, which include character, plot, purpose,...
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