THE NARRATIVE ESSAY

 A narrative essay is a piece of writing that recreates an experience

through time.
 A narrative essay can be based on one of your own experiences, either past
or present, or it can be based on the experiences of someone else.
 In addition to telling a story, a narrative essay also communicates a main
idea or a lesson learned.
 A narrative describes an event that happened in the past. We use the past
continuous, the simple past, present perfect and sometimes the past
perfect to describe what happened.

First steps for writing a narrative essay:

1. Identify the experience that you want to write about.

2. Think about why the experience is significant.
3. Spend a good deal of time drafting your recollections about the details of
the experience.
4. Create an outline of the basic parts of your narrative.

STRUCTURE of the narrative essay:

1. Opening: sets the scene of the story (when and where), how the story
starts and introduces the characters.
2. Body: develops the story with details of events and characters. We must
use a lot of adjectives to make the story as interesting as possible.
3. Closing: gives the ending of the story and any consequences. What
happened in the end and how did the characters feel?

Use connectors of sequence and time expressions to make the order of events
clear and to describe when things happened.

CONNECTORS OF SEQUENCE
At first As soon as TIME EXPRESSIONS
Before Soon Last weekend/summer/year …
After (that) Suddenly Two years ago …
Next While It all began when …
Later (on) During One afternoon/morning …
When Eventually
Fortunately/Unfortunately/Luckily …
Then For that reason
To my surprise …
Until Last of
all/Lastly Before I knew it …
Meanwhile In the end The funny thing is that ..
However As a result
Consequently Although
As In order to
ADVERBS USED TO DESCRIBE AN EVENT
You can make your narrative more interesting by using adverbs:
Amazingly Soprendentemente
Fortunately Afortunadamente
Incredibly Increíblemente
Luckily Afortunadamente Luckily we arrived on time to take the flight.
Suddenly De repente
Unfortunately Desafortunadamente

ADJECTIVES USED TO DESCRIBE FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

ADJECTIVES MEANING SENTENCES
Amazed Sorprendido,
alucinado
Angry Enfadado
Anxious Preocupado
Cold Frío
Confused Confundido
Delighted Encantado
Dry Seco
Excited Emocionado
Exhausted Agotado
Freezing Congelado
Glad Content I was glad to hear he was coming.
Guilty Culpable
Grateful Agradecido He was grateful for the gift.
Happy Feliz
Hot Acalorado
Hungry Hambriento
Lonely Solo
Miserable Desdichado
Pleased Encantado
Proud Orgulloso
Relieved Aliviado
Sad Triste
Scared Asustado
Shocked Impactado
Surprised Sorprendido
Terrified Aterrorizado
Tired Cansado
Warm Tibio
Worried Preocupado
Wet Mojado
TOPICS FOR WRITING A NARRATIVE ESSAY:

1. a disastrous date

2. a moment of failure or success

3. a memorable encounter with someone in authority or someone you admire.

4. My favorite day in the year

5. Have you ever seen or had an accident? Describe what happened.

6. The biggest mistake I have ever made

7. The most embarrassing moment in my life

8. A frightening experience

9. Do you use Internet? When and what for?

10. Write about a paranormal phenomenon you have witnessed, heard of, read
about...

11. Imagine you are an athlete taking part in the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Describe one day of your life there.

12. What distant or exotic country would you like to visit? Give reasons for
your choice.