1. Narration & Description
Modes of Discourse
Patterns of Development
Organizational Strategies

2. Narration & Description Background
Narration – telling a story to make a point
Description – evoking the senses to create a picture
BEST when used together for writing a detailed account of some memorable experience
First trip alone
Last-minute political victory
Picnic in some special place

3. Narration & Description Purpose
Introduce or illustrate a complicated subject
Often used to support some other strategy such as causal analysis or argument
Analyze an issue or theme
Example: new awareness of patriotism because of travel in a foreign country
Narrative purpose (what happened) and descriptive purpose (what it felt like) linked to other purposes
Could explain what caused new awareness (why it happened) or to argue that everyone needs such awareness (why everyone should reach the same conclusions)
Report actions and describe feelings
Autobiography, history, fiction (most common)

4. Narration & Description Audience
Consider
How much do I tell my audience? (narration)
Personal experience – few people will know it before you tell it
Add or delete material to fit occasion
How much do I show my audience? (description)
Unusual subject – include a lot of info, especially if it’s technical
New images & insights that create a fresh vision of the subject

5. Narration & Description Strategies
Beginning
Experiences and an essay about the experience are NOT the same
Memory will be disorganized and poorly defined
Experience to essay
Locate the central conflict
Between writer & himself
Between writer & others
Between writer & environment

6. Narration & Description Strategies (cont’d)
After identifying the conflict
Arrange action so readers know
How conflict started
How it developed, and
How it was resolved.
Types of arrangement (choose pattern according to purpose)
Simple chronological order (1, 2, 3, 4, …)
Angelou’s “My Name is Margaret” – describes an evolution of events leading up to the broken china
Start in the middle or near the end (4, … 1, 2, 3)
Williams’ “The Village Watchman” – describes impact of social stigma
PLOT

7. Narration & Description Strategies (cont’d)
After identifying the conflict & deciding the plot sequence
Establish pace – the speed at which the writer recounts events
Quick – omit details, compress time, summarize experience
Slow & careful – include every detail, expand on time, present the situation as a fully realized scene
Select details – make scenes and summaries effective
Special details that satisfy the needs of readers and further your purpose
Objective or technical to help reader understand
Subjective or impressionistic to appeal to readers’ senses
Figurative image or create dominant impression

8. Narration & Description Strategies (cont’d)
In order to identify the conflict, decide the plot sequence, vary the pace, and select details
Determine point of view
“I” OR “he” or “she”
Choose position – how close do you want to be to the action in time and space
Involved in action
View it as an observer
Tell as events are happening or many years after they’ve taken place

9. Narration & Description Points to Remember
Focus your narrative on the “story” in your story – that is, focus on the conflict that defines the plot.
Vary the pace of your narrative so that you can summarize some events quickly and render others as fully realized scenes.
Supply evocative details to help your readers experience the dramatic development of your narrative.
Establish a consistent point of view so that your readers know how you have positioned yourself in your story.
Represent the events in your narrative so that your story makes its point.

10. In this excerpt from her graphic novel Persepolis: The Story of a childhood (2003), Marjane Satrapi recounts the reaction of young schoolgirls to the law requiring them to wear “the veil.”
Some argue that the veil debases and even erases female identity. Others argue that it provides women with safety and secret power. How do the characters in Satrapi’s narrative feel about this regulation?

11. Read Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria”
Purpose
Why does Cofer introduce the conflict between custom and chromosomes? How does this conflict help explain the concept of stereotype?
How does this narrative help accomplish Cofer’s “personal goal in her public life?”
Audience
In what ways does Cofere use the references to Maria and Evita to identify her audience?
How does she use the example of the piropos to educate her audience?
Strategies
How does Cofere use the details of Career Day to explain how a cultural stereotype is perpetuated?
How does she manipulate point of view at her “first public poetry reading” to illustrate how she intends to change that stereotype?