One more personal narrative - Notaro

The writer grabbed my attention with the introduction.  Notaro only focused on running errands with his grandfather since he wasn’t allowed to drive any longer. The writer did a great job to help visualizing characters.  There is quoted speech that shows the grandfather’s feelings. The story did remind me of my grandfather had cancer and I was helping my grandparents out in the summer break.  I don’t think the author explained the significance of the people, events, places, or objects in shaping who he/she became. You can tell that the experience was having an impact on the author’s life though. The conclusion does not reinforce the point of the story in my opinion.

Another Personal Narrative - White

The introduction grabs my attention.  He does focus on significant events that took place in the summers at the lake.  Yes, the descriptions include sensory details that help me visualize them. The writer did not quote speech or dialogue. I don’t feel like the events were described in a way that allowed me to connect them to experiences in my own life.  He does explain how important this lake was to him in the summers as a child and he wanted to go back there to relive his experiences and see if it has changed.  He often felt like a boy himself at the lake and had trouble distinguishing at times if he was the father or son.  I don’t think the conclusion reinforces the point of the story.

Kristina Hanson

Diving into Personal Narratives - Sedaris

Yes, the introduction grabbed my attention.  I believe he is focusing on a significant event in his life. He moved to France to improve his French and had a mean teacher who always found negative things to say about everyone in class.  I did visualize a classroom, teacher and the foreign students.  He quoted the teacher a lot.  I moved here from Germany and did go to school in France for a couple of weeks on an exchange program, so I could connect the story to my experience. He started enjoying listening to the teacher when he could finally understand all the insults she threw at him.  In the conclusion he states that he can now understand every word the instructor is saying, but not speak it pretty yet.  He came to Paris to get better with French and he did accomplish that.

Kristina Hanson

Sentence Variety

Sam drove her car to the mall, where she went to the shoe store and bought a pair of boots and a shoeshine kit.  After that, Sam went to the food court and bought a burrito with onions and peppers on it.  While she ate it, she saw a cute boy at the pretzel stand and blushed, when he looked at her.  The boy came over and Sam said hi. Sam was confused by the boy wrinkling up his nose and said hi again. Now, the boy gagged and walked away, which shocked Sam.  She then realized that she had bad breath and ran to the bathroom, where she cried. Next, she put on her new boots, shined them and walked confidently out of the bathroom.  When she found the boy, Sam told him that he needed manners and kicked him with her new boots.  The boy fell down and Sam walked out of the mall.

Mechanics

One I always have trouble with is to put the statement in the positive form.  I always catch myself using negative form when talking too.  I'm trying to pay more attention to it and change it to positive. To make sure I get better at this weak point, I need to read through my paper to look for any negative sentence and see if I should change it to a positive one.  I can also tell the tutor in the writing center to look for it. I believe I do pretty good at keeping related words together.

Kristina Hanson