Why begin a course devoted to analytical writing with an assignment in personal narrative? The answer isn't obvious, but it makes sense. Narrating a personally significant moment allows you to practice several skills that will be important when you write analytically. When you write analytically, you will need to focus on particular topics, contextualize your argument (or thesis) within a larger framework of textual events or ideas, and select and arrange evidence persuasively.

First, the personal narrative asks you to "focus on a moment." What exactly happened in your life and why did it matter? These questions of what and why are crucial to the success of your narrative. They are also crucial when you write about the "events" occuring in a text. When university papers are unsuccessful, it is usually because they have failed to focus on particular issues, causes, and consequences within a larger text or topic.

Second, the assignment recommends the use of "flashbacks" to locate a particular moment in a longer chain of events important to the moment's signficance. Often we can't understand the moment without understanding the context in which it occurs. Flashbacks help you contextualize the moment and show why it matters. The model essay that we will discuss in the LARC 39A workshop begins within a moment but then uses flashbacks to step out of that moment and show its place in an overall pattern. The assignment also makes a distinction between "personal" and "private." The moment is personal because it happened to you, but its significance ought not be private, since it is the universal that makes your moment matter to everyone else. Flashbacks develop a context in which the universal is revealed within the personal.

Third, the assignment talks about selecting and arranging "details." These details are analogous to the selection and ordering of evidence to persuade a reader of an argument. How clearly we see, hear, touch, smell, or taste the moment that you present will play a large part in how persuaded we are of its significance. Your moment isn't significant just because you claim it is. You will demonstrate its significance by choosing "vivid" details for your presentation.

To learn more about how to write a successful personal narrative and qualify for a valuable individual conference, attend a LARC 39A workshop.