Writing a Narrative Piece

First choose one of the topics from Module 5 –you can use the questions given as a guide. 

Then brainstorm ideas, select the ones you’d like to use and make your outline. 

Finally, develop the ideas in an organized, interesting way.

Here’s an example from Burlington: 

Going green

Plan Introduction • Set the scene When did you start ‘greening’ your life? What made you begin this process? How did you begin? Paragraphs 2 and 3 • Describe the sequence of events What’s the first thing you did to become ‘green’? What did it entail? Was it easy or difficult to implement or get used to? Was it expensive, time-consuming, etc.? What was the result? Did you succeed the first time? Did things improve with time? What did you do next? • Include specific details and try to include your feelings about the subject of the narrative. How did you feel about what happened? • Use sequence connectors and expressions such as: first, next, then, finally, so… Conclusion • Sum up the things you have already achieved. • Describe your hopes and future plans.

Last year, my co-workers and I thought that we could make our working environment more eco-friendly. So we prepared a proposal for ‘going green’ and met with management to discuss our ideas.

At first, they did not approve our plan, but we were really determined and started to put recycling bins on every floor. Then we managed to persuade our supervisors to replace the old office equipment with more energy-efficient machines. That was really an achievement!

It did not take long for management to realize that our changes were actually saving them money, so they followed our recommendation and installed a new air conditioner that used less energy than the one we had. We also started organizing ‘green days’ once a month, when we would take part in environmental projects in the community. It felt great to get more people involved!

Now we have created a ‘green’ committee and are working with organizations that also want to ‘go green’. The next step is to devise large-scale ‘green’ projects’. I cannot wait to see what we will accomplish!