...I was born in the simple town of Layton Utah. Sadly a few years later contention grew ever more prevalent in my family, my parents growing farther apart. My father would come home late from a day of hard work, only to be ridiculed by my mother. I would hide in the closet of my sister’s bedroom, trying to block out the loud disputing between my parents. Soon the court papers returned, my parents now officially divorced. My sister and I were crushed, watching my father pack up his few items of value and drive off in our minivan. We had fallen into my mother’s custody, who was planning on taking the two of us to live with her mother and grandmother hundreds of miles away. I began to wonder if it was my fault my parents no longer loved each...
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... I was born and raised in Hartford, KY. It’s a small town, barely three thousand people. We only had one grocery store, one movie theater, and one red light. We didn’t even have a Wal-Mart. Everyone knew everyone. I couldn’t do anything without someone finding out and telling my parents. We couldn’t go to the store without running into someone my parents went to high school with. The houses are spread apart, so much so that I would have to walk half a mile to get to my neighbor’s house. There was one high school for the whole county. I was homeschooled so the only friend I had, Jesse, who was homeschooled as well, I had met at the Baptist church we went to. When we weren’t doing school work we were outside playing. In the fall, we would put on light jackets, and make piles of the brown and orange leaves and jump in them. During the summer, with our shorts and t-shirts on, we would just lay in the yard and watch the clouds since it was too hot to actually do anything. Most of my parents’ friends worked in either construction or they were teachers. My dad was the odd one out. He mostly worked form home as a video game designer. We weren’t rich, but we also weren’t considered poor in our town. I loved it there, still do. My dad recently got a big promotion. And to go along with this promotion, the company moved us to Las Vegas, NV. I hated the idea of moving. I was moving away from a place where everyone knew me and I knew everyone to a place where I didn’t know anyone. I knew...
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...I come from a small town down in Texas. The city I was born in is Weslaco. It is nothing to big, yet it is just enough for me here. My parents are seperated and have been since i was about 2 years old. Growing up i was an active kid maybe even a little bit too active. My dad and grandma were the ones to discipline me. They taught me right from wrong and how to treat others with respect and kindness. My parents are Omar Cantu and Lupita Torres, both are such great parents but i mostly grew up with my dad. My mom doesn’t work, she is a stay at home housewife. My sister and i live with my dad and grandmother. Esther Cantu is my grandmothers name. Now i can say she is one outstanding, courageous, intelligent woman. I have always looked up to...
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...set up all of our necessities on the lot, such as; utilities, gas, and sewer, emotions physically strained my parents and they had no idea how they were going to afford everything and be able to recover. Struggling through four years of living paycheck to paycheck, relying on family members, rolling coins to pay bills, my parents starving themselves so we kids could, and unknowingly building up debt, my parents made the most agonizing decision in their life. Being obligate to file for bankruptcy in 2005, were my parents. Filing bankruptcy in 2005 forced my parents and family to experience embarrassment and what occurred to be neglect and failure. Because my parents filed bankruptcy, no restaurants, stores, credit card companies, and personal friends would not take any checks or credit cards from them. At this point in their life they had no idea what to do and so they made it their best interest to restart everything back from the bottom. It has now been thirteen years since my parents filed bankruptcy and they are trying to leave their past all behind them and learn from their financial mistakes. Even though I am only eighteen years old, I have learned and recognized many tips and the what not to do's about managing money. Because I was so young during the hard part in my family's life, I do not remember anything, only what I got told in stories. Once I move out of my parent's home, after graduation, I would like to have an enormous savings account built up and be able...
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...waiting for the summer semester to begin. I sat on the couch scrolling through my phone and decided to check my email. At the top sat a message from the Registrar. “You have been placed on academic probation.” As a result they also took away my aid. The tears poured from my eyes before I could even process the whole situation. All I could see were my plans going to waste. I felt as though not only did I let myself down, but disappointed my family as well. My grades had crashed the semester before but I was hoping for a chance to redeem myself. Being put on probation and taking away financial aid I desperately needed felt like my goals had been stomped on. I immediately wanted to give up. I didn’t want to write an appeal dishing out all of my personal issues for a chance to be rejected. I wanted things to be easy and I figured why bother with this. I fell into a depressive episode my negative mind taking over once more saying this is exactly how things should be but part of me knew that was a lie. If it wasn’t for my mom I would probably still be there. My mother walked in on me crying and asked what was wrong. After I told her she told me I was silly. There’s no need to cry. She told me to write my appeal, don’t give up before you figure out all of your options. There are always going to be things in your way and it won’t be easy. I trust my mother’s advice so I listened. Had it not been for her I would have been stuck on stupidity in the same spot. If I had left I would miss my friends...
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... I was raised in a sheltered environment still even until this day. (Due to allergies) When I was a child my parents divorced and I thought it was natural that my parents lived in two different places. A couple years went by and my father fought to get me back, because my mother didn’t really take care of me very well. I ended up in the hospital so many times because she failed to take care of me and pushed me on to my father and my father’s mother. He won me back and I lived with him and his side of the family in one house in the Glind. We moved out eventually to a neighborhood behind Judson ISD. My aunt and her kids lived with my grandmother and grandfather who moved to the neighborhood. My father and I moved to an apartment. When my father won me back he didn't really know what to do himself because he never thought that he would win me back, but my grandmother helped him. I went to St.Monica's when I was a kid until eighth grade, because my father couldn’t afford it anymore. Then I went to Bradley Middle School. During my time in St.Monica’s, I was in the fourth grade and my grandfather passed away in his sleep at a nursing home; It broke my heart deeply. I loved him a lot. As I have grown up my family tells me, “Always know who and what you’re dealing with”. With that in mind they also told me “God, Family, School, then the extracurriculars. Your education is more important than your friendships with your friends and our activities. You don’t go to school to make friends...
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...home to a variety of different workout programs I have purchased. While in my AND program I really stopped caring for myself. I did not work out, I ate a lot, and a lot of unhealthy food and found that not only did I gain a lot of weight, I also did not feel well and I was tired a lot. I believe that by working out and trying to eat healthy, I feel better and have more energy and can focus better. I hope to continue with my workout routine while in this program. I also enjoy cooking, reading, and just enjoying time with my family. My daughter attends a private Christian School and I am very excited about sharing the assigned readings with her. I believe that this can only bring us closer together and hopefully it will set a good example for her to continue on with her studies when the time comes. ...
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...I take a seat in the warmly lit room consisting of only a lamp, piano, and a chair; I place my fingers on the keys and listen to the music cover up the sound of loud, active conversation. My extended family sits in the kitchen and on the deck at my grandma’s house for one of the many gatherings. I got up to take a step away from the crazy family just long enough to play some piano and recollect my thoughts. The family all sits around, Endsley dip on their laps, telling the best stories they can think of. All of my cousins are amazing; working, getting good grades, and becoming all star athletes in their sports. I succeed just as much, only in band and school rather than baseball and basketball. My cousin hitting the game winning walk off single...
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...On July 1 in 2013, I was on leave in Ohio visiting my daughter and my family. My daughter had been playing volleyball for three months, and her team had made it to the championship. Excited, she wanted me to go watch her team’s final game, so of course I said, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Sitting in the bleachers waiting for the game to start I noticed Alycia, who happened to be the mother of my daughter’s good friend. I have known Alycia for eleven years, but seeing her this time I decided to take a chance. I did not quite have the courage to ask her out, so I had to think of something to get this woman to say yes to a date. Before the game started, we were taking pictures of the kids with our phones. I noticed my phone had taken a better picture, so I asked for her number to text her the picture. The idea to get her number worked, but it was kind of a creep move but never the less it worked. As my daughter’s game progressed, Alycia and I caught up on some old times about how big the kids had gotten over the years. Once the game ended, I was packing my daughter into the car said bye to Alycia and we drove away to celebrate the win. After I dropped my daughter off to her mother I could not wait anymore I texted Alycia. I did not text her “hello” or “how are you” I texted “will you marry me”. At first I did not think she would respond, but to my surprise, she replied, “I do not think your daughter’s mom would like that.” I laughed inside, so I followed the text with a dinner...
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...The Christian Story and Our Stories: Narrative Pedagogy in Congregation Life In the feature article " The Christian Story and Our Stories: Narrative Pedagogy in Congregation Life" the author, Benjamin D. Espinoza, explains the educational strategy of narrative pedagogy, its characteristics and creative ways to apply it effectively in religious and secular ambits in our life. First, narrative pedagogy is an approach to teaching that involve our life stories through creative ways and another life stories (in the Christian ambit biblical stories) to form and renovate our life from the past through the present to the future. The purpose of explain the theological truths through stories is to develop a clearer understanding of the ideas, avoiding...
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...Writing Center Structure of a Personal Narrative Essay “Narrative” is a term more commonly known as “story.” Narratives written for college or personal narratives, tell a story, usually to some point, to illustrate some truth or insight. Following are some tools to help you structure your personal narrative, breaking it down into parts. The “Hook” Start your paper with a statement about your story that catches the reader’s attention, for example: a relevant quotation, question, fact, or definition. Introduction Set the Scene Provide the information the reader will need to understand the story: Who are the major characters? When and where is it taking place? Is it a story about something that happened to you, the writer, or is it fiction? Thesis Statement The thesis of a narrative essay plays a slightly different role than that of an argument or expository essay. A narrative thesis can begin the events of the story: “It was sunny and warm out when I started down the path”; offer a moral or lesson learned: “I’ll never hike alone again”; or identify a theme that connects the story to a universal experience: “Journeys bring both joy and hardship.” “Show, Don’t Tell” Good story telling includes details and descriptions that help the reader understand what the writer experienced. Think about using all five senses—not just the sense of sight—to add details about what you heard, saw, and felt during the event. For example, “My heart jumped as the dark shape...
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...The primary purpose of historical narratives is to report as accurately as possible what happened at each particular place and time in history. But each of the writers in this unit (De Vaca, Bradford, and Equiano) went beyond merely reporting the facts; they had other, more personal reasons for writing what they did. Each of them had a personal agenda. Equiano’s personal agenda in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano was to shame his white audience into abolishing the slave trade by describing the horrible events that took place on the ship. While he did state facts about the ship, Equiano described personal experiences to persuade the audience more. For example, Equiano describes the smell of the hold as being “…so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to...
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...CLRC Writing Center Structure of a Personal Narrative Essay “Narrative” is a term more commonly known as “story.” Narratives written for college or personal narratives, tell a story, usually to some point, to illustrate some truth or insight. Following are some tools to help you structure your personal narrative, breaking it down into parts. The “Hook” Start your paper with a statement about your story that catches the reader’s attention, for example: a relevant quotation, question, fact, or definition. Set the Scene Provide the information the reader will need to understand the story: Who are the major characters? When and where is it taking place? Is it a story about something that happened to you, the writer, or is it fiction? Thesis Statement The thesis of a narrative essay plays a slightly different role than that of an argument or expository essay. A narrative thesis can begin the events of the story: “It was sunny and warm out when I started down the path”; offer a moral or lesson learned: “I’ll never hike alone again”; or identify a theme that connects the story to a universal experience: “Journeys bring both joy and hardship.” “Show, Don’t Tell” Good story telling includes details and descriptions that help the reader understand what the writer experienced. Think about using all five senses—not just the sense of sight—to add details about what you heard, saw, and felt during the event. For example, “My heart jumped as the dark shape of the brown grizzly lurched...
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...your audience may immediately identify your topic. This construction also helps you, the writer, stay focused on your subject. Consider the following example of an essay introduction: The first sentence is the topic sentence: It tells the readers they will learn about past narratives. The sentences that follow the topic sentence relate to the topic sentence because they provide examples of past narratives. Finally, the last sentence is the thesis of the essay, which expresses the author’s position on the topic and previews what the entire paper is about. You learn more about writing effective introductions later in this course. Supporting Paragraphs Every paragraph after your introduction must be a supporting paragraph. A supporting paragraph supports or proves your thesis. All supporting paragraphs must include a topic sentence. You may then develop the supporting paragraphs within your paper by using one or more of the following methods: • Examples and illustrations • Data, facts, or historical or personal details • A simple story, or narrative • Descriptions • Division and classification • Analysis • Process analysis • Definitions • Cause-effect • Comparison-contrast • Argument The previous paragraph about journals used examples to support the topic sentence. Consider the paragraph following the introduction:...
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...Lake” and Judy Brady’s “I want a wife”, both authors write on personal encounters they experienced. The author chooses two different methods of writing styles. E.B. White utilizes a nostalgic reflective descriptive piece, whereas Brady uses a more sarcastic narrative. Arguably both writers do a great job in their story telling skills. Both stories are respected and pleasing, yet similar but different at the same time. The authors’ choice of writing style is what gives one story more of an advantage to the other. Though descriptive and narrative essay have identical intent – to tell the reader a story- narratives are more effective in capturing the audience because the uses of different voices, they bring ideas into perspective and they are relatable. There are special components that both style of writing possesses. Narrative writing usually does not stress adjectives to give the physical details of characters, setting or events in the story. Nothing like descriptive writing, narrative writings are written in the first person in order to convey the author's attitudes, beliefs and memories. Narratives are conventional, while descriptive writings content often emphases on a single event, object or place. Occasionally, writers utilize narrative writing style to tell about the past or the future in broad terms. A narrative often reflects personal experience, clarifying what happened during some sort of incident. Narrative essay topics include recounting an experience where the learned...
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