1. TELLING A
STORY
How to write
a narrative
paragraph

2. NARRATIVE PARAGRAPH
•Objective
•The author has experienced an unusual
incident, something worth telling
•To relay what happened to the readers,
the author narrates the story
•In chronological manner

3. ORGANIZATION
Background
Beginning
Middle
End

4. BACKGROUND
•Set the scene for the story
•How you felt toward the incident
•When the story happened
•Where the story happened

5. SAMPLE
•How to give background
•I never believed in aliens before one
night last year. It was cold, dark winter
evening, and I was walking home from a
friend’s house.

6. BEGINNING
•How the incident started
•What you were doing before a strange
incident happened?

7. SAMPLE
•Start from the beginning
• I stopped to tie my shoes. When I
looked up again, I saw a round object
coming toward me.

8. MIDDLE
•Tell the story in a chronological
manner
•Main part of the story
•What happened next?

9. SAMPLE
•Develop the story
•It was very large and shiny. I couldn’t
believe what I was seeing. Before I
could shout or run, the object suddenly
moved and then disappeared. After the
object disappeared, I ran all the way
home and called my best friend.

10. END
•What happened after the
incident
•How you felt, lived your life, or how it
impacted your life after that

11. SAMPLE
•How the story ended
•When she picked up the phone, I
couldn’t say anything. I knew she would
think I was crazy. I never told anyone
about my UFO sighting.

12. TIME EXPRESSION
•How to make a story easy to
follow
•Time expression
•When/before/while/after

13. TIME EXPRESSION
•TE + clause, noun, noun phrase
•After the rain, the sun shines.
•Before the waves hitting the shore,
everything was calm.
•When she began to sing, the whole
room became quiet.
•While it was raining, the thunder
struck.