Mrs. Bernstein Portfolio Class

Personal Narrative

Writing Cycle: Brainstorming

What is a Personal Narrative?You write about yourself and experiences that you have encountered, read, or heard about. You can become much more engaged when your write about yourself in personal narratives because you are the expert on the topic of your life. When you write stories from your own experience, you already have a plot. Your job will be to make the story interesting - as interesting for your reader as it was for you when it happened. Lots of description, lots of action, and lots of dialogue will help your reader feel what you felt.

The Importance of Brainstorming

Brainstorming helps writers constructively put all their ideas down on paper. By brainstorming, a writer’s essay will be well thought out and will help the writer think of details later on. If a writer starts an essay without planning ideas out, the essay will feel unorganized and thrown together. It may also result in not having enough details.

Instructions for Brainstorming

You will be given 3 topics today. You are to brainstorm each one of them. Each topic should have 8-12 sentence response.

Mrs. Bernstein’s example: Light Bulb Moment: I have the strength to stand up for myself.I. It was the fifth grade. The day started like any other day, with my nemesis (bully) Naomi, sitting next to me on the bus to

school. I was waiting in trepidation (fear) for what Naomi had planned to do to me that day. In the past she had thrown spit balls in my hair, covered my pretty light yellow sweater with bright red lipstick smears, called me degrading names such as “meatball” and “fire-head”.

Light Bulb Moment: I have an obsession with video games.Three details you remember about that day:V. I remember the first day I got my Nintendo 64. The

excitement was crazy.

VI. Having one of the best electronic systems at the time, I could not put the remote down.

VII. I would literally not get off playing for hours on end, leaving my fingers all numb and red from excessive playing.

Childhood Memory- Choose a vivid time from your childhood -- You might think of the first time that you rode a school bus, of a time when you went to the principal's office, the first A you earned on a test or paper, earning money to buy something that you really wanted, and so on. Narrate the events related to the childhood memory that you've chosen so that your readers will understand why the event was important and memorable.

Childhood Memory: First time I went to Coney Island.

Three details from that memory:

I. One thing I’ve noticed when I first went to CI were all the bright lights. Everything felt like a fairytale.

II. The first ride I ever got on was one of the haunted rides, it was the most scariest situation I was ever put in at the time.

III. Watching everyone having a good time was amazing, I was at a happy place.

A Powerful Influence: Think about an individual in your life that you admire. Who is that person? What is your relationship to this individual? What has this person done that is admirable?

Brainstorm three things about this person using the questions above to help you:

I. My mother is the person who I truly admire.

II. She’s the most amazing mother I can ever ask for.

III. My mom has put up with all the things that I have done that weren’t so bright. She helps me when I’m in situations, and gives me her best opinion.