Personal Narrative: The Tell Tale Heart

The story of my history as a writer is a very long one. My writing has come full circle. I have changed very much throughout the years, both as I grew older and as I discovered more aspects of my own personality. The growth that I see when I look back is incredible, and it all seems to revolve around my emotions. I have always been a very emotional girl who feels things keenly. All of my truly memorable writing, looking back, has come from experiences that struck a chord with my developing self. This assignment has opened my eyes, despite my initial difficulty in writing it. When I was asked to write down my earliest memory of writing, at first I drew a blank. All of a sudden, it became very clear to me, probably because it had some

I was in high school the first time I had to write a narrative. I was a freshman. This was Ms. Bradley’s first time teaching at Union Christian Academy. On her first day, she gave us our syllabus and said, “I do not accept late work, especially on writing assignments.” We, literally, sat there stunned. My freshman class had it very easy during eighth grade year. We were not expecting this. As I looked through the syllabus, I saw that our first assignment was due in a week and it was a narrative. At this time, I did not even know what a narrative was. Ms. Bradley explained that a narrative was an account or story of events. It could be either true or false. Our narrative had to be true. It had to be a true account of something that happened to us over the summer. She wanted to gauge how are writing skills were. Our narrative had to be at least two to two and a half pages long. I chose to write my first ever narrative on my trip to Fort Worth, Texas. Once again, I was plagued with writer’s block. I had the story in my head, but everything I

While reading a variety of stories, I am able to point out literary elements to my students. I know reading to my students can teach my students about good writing (Bruning, 2011, p. 295). I also

During the third season of When Calls the Heart, I became the unofficial interviewer of the Hope Valley Kids, probably because I interviewed so many of them. And Jaiven Natt was definitely in that group. With his return to the series this year, we have continued to see his skill and character expand and deepen, so I recently had the supreme opportunity of chatting with him yet again, and this time, we had a decidedly different, but engaging interview covering a wide variety of topics.

This season on “When Calls the Heart” has been a fantastic time of growth in the community, and many of the featured new faces have been the children of Hope Valley. Yet again, Hearties were introduced to a character named Robert who didn’t get along with Cody in the beginning, but Miss Thatcher never gave up on him. With his signature curly hair and spot on facial expressions, we have not been able to overlook this character nor the boy who has infused him with life, Jaiven Natt. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with this 11-year-old who has become a delightful part of this weekly Hallmark escape.

I wish I could run faster. I wish so many obstacles weren't in my way. I wish I knew why so many people wanted me dead. I wish I could...remember.

I knew cross country would come with pain, but I didn’t realize the risk I was taking. After the Starmont meet, the pain I was having was unendurable. I didn’t think I’d be able to walk.

The clouds were black, immeasurable, and grotesque. I still believe it was because my best friend was leaving for war. My friend Nicholas was the only person that I could have reliance and certainty with. He was the person that when the stresses of the world got to heavy on my shoulders he would pick the world up of my shoulders and carry the burden of the stresses of reality for me. In the end there are no words to describe the signification he has in my life and there is no comfort that can fix the loss that I feel in my heart because of his absence. So for the time being my heart will be in two places, half with me here in Denver, Colorado and the other half in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

I’d had many mini-lifelines thrown my way, none turned out to be the life-altering, ground shaking beneath me, and gates to opening up “heaven”, though. To me, I’d blame it on the different ways I came off to strangers, depends on the day, I could be a multitude of characters, but never latch onto the following of others. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted my lifeline to latch onto, the problem was, I was like a fishing net with a gaping hole--incapable of doing such things. Then, the last person I expected to, stepped up and accepted the challenge.

Soon after completing that story, our class began another. Using what I had figured out, I added in all those thoughts and feelings of the characters. Even then, it was a bit short, but I was getting better. I edited them in. After that story, we did yet another, and by the time I was done with my first draft, my story was already three times longer than I had anticipated! I was able to add even more in once I began editing,

I must have been eight or nine when I started planning with a friend to put on a play. Katie was probably fourteen or fifteen and all we really wanted was to do something with our friends, neither of us having much experience with acting. Looking back now, many years later and a lot more knowledge and experience on the subject, I’d say we were gung hoe and mess up on out priorities. First we started writing a script. Understandably she didn’t want me to write it and she never got much of a chance to work on it except when we were together sometimes. Well we didn’t get very far and our families finally convinced us to start with a play already written. What did we pick? Well, I think we jumped around a little before settling on ‘The Taming

With much haste, Beth began the sentence, correctly reading The, a sight word that is clearly recognizable to my student. This shows me that Beth has mastered a few sight words. As if gaining confidence with the first word, she quickly continues reading The dad bear….This is a big whoops. Beth recognized the last two letters in the word bad, however the initial letter made an unfamiliar word to my student. Thus she replaced the initial letter with a d, creating a sight word she was more familiar with, dad. I’m assuming that my student read bear correctly because of the illustration and sight word knowledge.

As Elastic Heart came to an end the bell rang, and the school day had officially started. I was quite proud of myself for two reasons right now, one reason was because I hadn't snapped today yet. The second reason I was proud was because I manage to get Lydia's math done already, I just had to copy mine, good thing I actually do my work. The thing I was really nervous about was Lydia's paper, how was I supposed to have that done in time?

The pain hurts so bad, like a sharp pain down my leg every time I try to run. It's hard, running is my passion and I can't even do that! Even walking is hard, a numb pain just there waiting to become stronger. So that pain in my leg while I try to walk to class and think of what the word cephalopod means for my lovely biology test to keep my mind off my leg. Then, of, course stupid Tristan O'Brien had to slam into me and knock my lovely organized notes all over the floor.

The Writing 101 assignment that I have chosen best demonstrates my progress as a writer is our Personal Narrative Essay. Though this was our first essay of the semester, I did receive my highest grade on this assignment and believes that it reflects my abilities as a writer. Because it was a Personal Narrative, writing the narrative came easy to me but along the way I faced a couple road blocks. With it being my first college essay, I referred to the Writing Center in the Mortvedt Library for guidance outside the classroom. One road block that I faced was creating imagery and being descriptive. Describing a concerts atmosphere and ambiance in my essay was difficult because I was there to experience the feeling first hand, I struggled with putting that feeling into words that could make sense to someone who has never