Personal Experience Essay Assignment

For this essay you will need to write about one specific experience that
changed how you acted, thought, felt, saw yourself or the world. Use
your experience not just to tell an interesting story but to show your
readers the importance of and influence the experience has had on
you.

Characteristics of a narrative:
∼ Narratives make a point.
∼ Narratives convey action and details.
∼ Narratives present a conflict and create tension.
∼ Narratives sequence events.
∼ Narratives use dialogue.
∼ Narratives are told from a point of view.

We have worked in class on adding details and creating a good lead.

We have also worked on creating a variety of sentence beginnings.
Your essay should reflect this work. Use the attached rubric to
evaluate your own writing. You will be required to have an
adult read your piece and respond to it, using the attached
guidelines, before you turn in your final copy. Your final copy
should be free of glaring spelling and grammar errors and have
appropriate capitalization and punctuation.

Important to note:

Your final copy will need to be typewritten. No handwritten copies will

be accepted. You will have time in the library to work on your final
copy. See the attached guidelines for the format for your paper. Not
following the format will automatically reduce your score by 5 points.

DATE DUE: _______________________________

Student’s Name_____________________________________________________

Adult Reader Signature_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this essay. Please take a moment to help me
improve my essay. Your comments are important to me.

Have I spelled my words correctly?

Did I use a variety of sentences? (varied length and structure)

Do I have any sentence fragments or run-ons?

Did I include enough details that you were able to see the event in
your mind?

Did I use strong verbs and descriptive language?

After reading my story, what is one thing you wish I had said more
about?

What is something you really liked in my writing?

What is one thing I could change to make my story more complete?

Personal Narrative Rubric
Sentence Fluency
3 2 1
• Sentence • Some repetition • Sentence
beginnings varied in sentence beginnings often
and interesting; beginnings; some repeated;
variety of evidence of sentences choppy
sentence length varied sentence – no variety
and structures length
Word Choice
3 2 1
• Details clear and • Some detail, but • Not enough detail
vivid – can picture needs more to to create a clear
setting and develop setting picture
events through and events • Story begins in a
use of lively verbs • Lead is okay, but confusing or non-
and adjectives needs to “hook” exciting way
• Story begins with reader and/or set
an effective lead up the story more
Ideas
3 2 1
• Long enough to • Not quite long • Too short to be a
fully develop enough to tell fully developed
story story; could use story
• Significance of further • Significance of
experience development experience not
obvious to reader • Reader can tell obvious to reader
the event was or not explained
important, but at all
could emphasize
more
Conventions
3 2 1
• Proper nouns and • Most proper • More than three
beginnings of nouns and proper
sentences beginnings of nouns/beginnings
capitalized sentences not capitalized
• Words spelled capitalized (three • Five or more
and used or fewer mistakes spelling/usage
correctly (one or • Three or fewer mistakes
no mistakes spelling/usage
mistakes
TOTAL SCORE: