narrative paragraph

narrative paragraph

Narration: A story that is written to explain what, when, and who. It reveals what a reader should learn. Narration paragraphs are usually written in chronological order.

It should make a clear point: it should bring to life a moral, lesson, or idea.

While it is true a narrative is a story, there is more in the telling of the story. The narrative, or story, needs to make the reader feel involved, teach a lesson, help get an idea across, or feel emotionally about it. The narrative needs to explain who is in the story, tell what is happening, and when it happened. The topic sentence needs to be clear so the reader knows they are going to learn something from the story. The story itself is written in time, or chronological order, as the events occured.~ Mary M.

Common Transitional expressions used in a narrative paragraph are after, finally, soon, as (soon as), later, then, before, meanwhile, upon, during, next, when, first, now, and while.

A good way to plan for a well developed paragraph is to write out a topic sentence, then write events in chronological order and then write a conclusion. This is a good way to make sure you stay on topic and that all the events are in the correct order.

Here is an example of a Narrative Paragraph:

Peddling On My Own

Learning how to ride a bike for the first time was a nerve racking independent moment. I was about five years old when my sister informed me that I was too old to still be riding a bike with training wheels. That was the time I decided not to depend on them anymore. Even though I had some doubt, my sister and I went outside and started to take the little wheels off my bike. After my bike went through the transformation, I was now ready for the big moment. With butterflies in my stomach, I slowly got on the bike, and with my shaky hands, I gripped the handles tightly. Meanwhile my sister was holding on to me to help keep my balance. I was so afraid the she would let go, yet I was determined to ride this bike on my own. Next with a little push from her, I started to peddle. The faster my bike went the faster my heart raced. Finally I looked back nervously and noticed that my sister let go of my bike a long time ago. I was so excited that I accomplished freedom on my bike that I forgot to peddle. The next step I remember, I was lying on the ground, yet I did not care because of the adrenaline rush. I will never forget the exhilarating moment and growing up stage of riding a bike without training wheels.