COMPOSITION TECHNIQUES – A NARRATIVE !
1er Batxillerat
Lestonnac-Barcelona
1
WRITING A NARRATIVE
(see page 111 in your student’s book for further reference)
When we write a narrative, we tell an informal story or give a more formal report
of past events. Therefore we use past tenses such as Past Simple, Past
Continuous, Past Perfect and used to + infinitive.
Events can be reported in many different ways: as a newspaper report, as a
letter, as a composition or even as a novel. A narrative can also include many
different writing styles such as descriptions, dialogues and speeches.
We will now deal basically with narratives in the form of a composition.
♦ When you tell a story, you usually answer the following Wh-questions:
! Who was involved in the story?
! What happened?
! When did it happen?
! Where did it happen?
! Why and how did it happen?
♦ Narratives are usually organized in a chronological order, by arranging the
facts in the order they ocurred.
♦ You should include the following PARTS:
1.
A title-
a suitable title can often be found in the composition topic itself.
2.
An opening-
which sets the scene with details of time, place and people.
So in this part you should answer as many of the wh-questions as possible.
3.
A body-
which develops the events in stages that take place one after the
other, giving details of what happened and people involved in them.
4.
A conclusion-
which ends the story. It may also say how the event might
affect the future, as a closing comment.
