school memory narrative essay

My School Memory & Childhood Memory Essay & Paragraph

Here is a collection of essays and paragraphs on ‘My School Memories’ and ‘My Childhood Memories’. Everything changes over time. The school you attended as a child may not exist today, or it may not be as it was then. Some of the games and sports that you played as a child may have been lost in the modern touch today. The change must have caught your eye. How was your school then, how were your childhood days? Write an essay or paragraph describing your childhood memories.

Table of Contents

My School Memory Paragraph, 200 Words

By: Haque | For class 6-7 | 02-04-’22

Write a Paragraph on ‘Memories of My School Days’. In your paragraph, mention your class, lessons, examination, homework, games and sports, friends, Headmaster, other teachers, etc.

The memories of my school days are very sweet. I often remember the sweet memories of my school days. In our class, there were sixty students . We all loved one another. Our class lessons were very interesting. All of our teachers were experienced. They took special care of the weak students. We never put off our homework. There was a good academic atmosphere in our school. We attended our classes regularly. As a result, we were never afraid of examinations. Tutorial examinations were held every month half-yearly, 2nd terminal and Annual Examinations were held in our school. There were good facilities for games and sports in our school. We played football, cricket, and volleyball in our school. There were also facilities for indoor games. All the students of the class were very cooperative and friendly. We often arranged debates and went on picnics . The teachers were very helpful to us. They helped us both inside and outside the classroom . The headmaster was really an experienced teacher . The teachers were our guide , guardians, and friends . The happy memories of my school days still fill my heart with joy.

Take a walk to: Village Fair Essay & Paragraph

Memories of My School Life Essay, 400 Words

By: Haque | For class 9-10 | 02-04-’22

My school days were the best days of my life . I still remember my first day at school . My school life is the brightest part of my memory.

I can still feel how warmly my school welcomed me. The affection I received from my teachers and the love I received from my classmates will never be forgotten. That’s why I always consider my primary school memories as the treasure of my life.

Those who are my best friends today, I got from my school. And those teachers of my childhood are still my fatherly guardians. This is how my school life has helped me and enriched me.

I think if I didn’t have the golden memories and valuable experiences of my school life, I would have missed a lot in my life. I did not get my wonderful friends, my experiences, and happy memories. Those days of excitement helped me to appreciate the value of time and to find meaning in life.

My school life has taught me how to be disciplined , responsible, hardworking, and realistic. That’s how my school life made me, so today I’m happy with my career. I believe that what school life teaches a person really affects the rest of his life.

One of the brightest memories of my school was the day I won the prize in the annual inter-school science competition. It was an event of great joy for me and my parents and a moment of great pride for my school. The principal of our school gave me a medal that day.

In my school life, I used to note down all my events in a personal diary. Now when I get a little leisure, I open the diary. In this notebook, I am delighted to discover the memories and experiences of my school life. It fills me with confidence and courage.

I remember how happy my parents were when I got first place in the whole school. They embraced me with joy and love.

It is said that a person always remembers his first day and last day in school. I remember that too. I cried the first day I went to school, the same way I cried the last day of my school life, because of the sadness of leaving. That’s how school days are the most memorable days of my life.

My Childhood Memory Essay, 250 Words

By: Haque | For class 7-8 | 02-04-’22

Introduction: Childhood is the sweetest period of human life. I often remember the days of my childhood. When I remember my childhood days, I feel happy.

My Childhood Memories:   I was the youngest son of my parents. So, all the members of our family loved me very dearly. They bought me nice toys. My grandmother was very fond of me. She told me many interesting stories.

My Days in the Village: I was born in a village . The Padma flows by it. I swam in the river with other boys.

The whole village was my playground. I wandered in the village and played with my friends. The days of summer were the happiest days to us. We plucked mangoes and blackberries from tree to tree and ate them to our heat’s content. I had a great fascination for picking green mangoes during storm.

Education at Home: My learning was not dull. My uncle taught all the children of our family in the morning and at night.

The Village Maqtab: The village Maqtab was another interesting place for me. An old Maulavi used to teach us there.

School Days: The days of my school were very sweet. In school, we were afraid of our teachers.

The Village Hat: Another interesting memory was the village hat. The hat used to sit twice a week. I used to go to the market with my father. I used to buy sweets from the vendors.

Conclusion: How happy I was in my childhood days! The happy memories of those days still fill my heart with great joy. I wish I could have gone to those days again!

Read also: Friendship & Best Friend Essay & Paragraph

My Childhood Memory Essay, 600 Words

Introduction: Childhood days are very special to every person. A human child is born in a very helpless and weak form. Parents raise the child with utmost care and unconditional love. So, that period is a happy period for most people. However, childhood can be full of sorrow and nightmares for some orphans and helpless people. My childhood days were full of happy events. There were some sorrows too. But the happy memories invariably overshadow the sorry recollections. When I think of my childhood days I have a feeling of joy. My childhood days passed at Agrabad in Chittagong town. There we lived in a one-storied building.

Siblings, Parents, and Grandparents: I was the third child of my parents. My two elder sisters played with me and loved me very much. They shared every delicious food item with me. In the mornings and afternoons, I walked and played in the garden and on the roof of our house with my sisters. I asked them every type of question and they replied to my questions with their imaginations and little knowledge. I annoyed my sisters very much and wanted to follow them everywhere. My parents and sisters told me different types of stories. Those stories developed my imagination to full bloom. We had a radio and a cassette player in our house. I listened to different melodious songs on the radio and cassette player with my family. My grandparents also lived with us. I liked to pass time with them and listen to their experiences. Sometimes I made mistakes and when my parents were about to punish me, my grandparents always saved me. My grandparents died when I was seven years old. It was a matter of great shock to us. I still miss them.

Friends and Playmates: I had a few friends. They were our neighbors. At that time television was very costly and very few families had it. There was a color television in one of my friends’ houses. Sometimes I went to his house to watch TV. The programs on TV fascinated me. The number of my friends increased when I got admitted to the school.

The School: I was admitted to school at the age of five. The school was a very short distance from our house. I clearly remember my first day at school. I got up early in the morning, put on a white shirt and blue pants, and went to school with my father. In school, I met my teachers and classmates. My classmates were friendly and nice to me. My teachers also loved me very much.

Market and Park: Sometimes my parents took me to the market. At the market, they bought me dresses, chocolates, toys, balls, and other necessary items. They also took me to parks. We had a merry-go-round and other kinds of rides in the parks.

The Fairs: I also went to fairs with my parents. There is a big fair held annually in Chittagong. It is called ‘Jabbarer Bali Khela’. Many attractive toys and household items are found at that fair. My parents took me to that fair and bought me toys and sweetmeats. We also went to other fairs held on the occasion of Bengali New Year’s Day, Victory Day, Language Day, etc. We also went to different book fairs where my parents bought me books suitable for children.

Conclusion: A happy feeling engulfs me when I think of my childhood days. Then I lost myself in reverie and feel a strong nostalgia and longing for those days. That period has essentially made me the man I am now.

About the Author

A teacher, writer and blogger, started allparagraph noting students search online for paragraphs on various topics, short and simple essays , edifying stories and other materials of study . In composing these lessons we have tried to use as simple language as possible, keeping young students in mind. If you find any text inappropriate, please let us know so we can make it more useful through necessary corrections and modifications. Thank you!

4 thoughts on “My School Memory & Childhood Memory Essay & Paragraph”

Thank you too.

Hello, Mr Haque I’m a teacher of English at an Algerian middle school and I find your essay very useful and I’m presenting it as a test for my students could you, please tell me what is the source of your passage?

Dear Razika , Thank you for your comment. I am from Bangladesh. I am very happy to hear that you liked one of my blog essays. If I say about the source of writing, almost half of the writing on this site I have taken from some English grammar books of our country’s schools which are not included in the main syllabus and students read them as supplementary guidebooks. The other half of the essays and paragraphs here are my own.

Could you please tell me the topics or titles of some essays and paragraphs that are not on my blog but are often asked to write in schools in Algeria?

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Adblock Detected!

Please help us run the website by disabling your ad blocker..

Best Childhood Memories Essay Ideas: 94 Narrative Topics [2024]

Many people believe that childhood is the happiest period in a person’s life. It’s not hard to see why. Kids have nothing to care or worry about, have almost no duties or problems, and can hang out with their friends all day long.

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

An essay about childhood gives an opportunity to plunge into your memories. All you need to do is recollect those happy days and write a brilliant essay! In this article by Custom-Writing.org , you’ll find great tips and topic ideas to kickstart the process.

• 🔝 Top 10 Topics
• 💡 Coming Up with Ideas
• 🧸 Childhood Memories Essay Topics
• ✍️ Writing Examples & Guide
• 🔍 References

🔝 Top 10 Childhood Topics to Write About

• Your favorite holiday memory.
• Your brightest memories of winter.
• Your earliest school memory.
• Your first visit to a farm.
• What was your favorite toy?
• Do you remember your granny’s kitchen?
• Your childhood memories of your parents.
• Your best childhood friend.
• Things that you initially disliked at school.
• Experiments with physics in childhood.

💡 Coming Up with Childhood Memories Essay Ideas

Perhaps you got lost in your memories and cannot choose the best one to describe in your essay. Or maybe you have a bad memory and cannot recollect something specific to write about. If that’s the case, here are some recommendations for you.

Childhood Memories List: How to Write

Don’t know where to start? Try creating a list of your memories to decide which ones you need for your paper.

There are our top tips on making a childhood memories list:

• Write down everything that comes to your mind. What are some significant memories from your childhood? Every little experience starting with your earliest memory matters. Of course, you don’t need all of this information for your essay. Still, it will help your brain to start working in the right direction.
• Try to focus on specific things such as holidays, trips, or food. Everybody’s favorite childhood memories are often connected with them. Remarkable events also might include school, neighborhood, hometown, presents you received, and your achievements. Nostalgia is your best friend in this case.
• Divide your memories into categories. Good childhood experiences such as receiving a dream present or adopting a pet belong to one category. Life-changing events, key achievements, and unfortunate accidents can go into other categories.
• Try not to avoid bad childhood memories. It’s not the most pleasant thing in this task. But sometimes, writing about bad situations or challenges is a good strategic decision for your paper. It can also help your personal growth.

How to Remember Childhood Memories

What is your earliest memory? A frightening fall down the stairs? Or perhaps blowing candles on your second birthday? Whatever the content, it is probably short and vague.

Just in 1 hour! We will write you a plagiarism-free paper in hardly more than 1 hour

When we grow older, our recollections of early childhood become fragmentary . In fact, a profound memory loss occurs, which psychologists call infantile amnesia (you can learn more about it from the article “ New perspectives on childhood memory ”). Memories formed during early childhood are more fragile than those formed later in life.

That’s why it’s a great idea to write down our childhood recollections. This way, they’ll stay with us even after they lose their rich vividness and start to fade altogether.

Naturally, you can’t keep everything in your head. Some childhood memories will stay with you forever, while others vanish during your teenage years. Remembering something you have forgotten is not an easy task.

Here’s a way out: use this checklist to recall your childhood experiences:

Feeling completely out of ideas? Or maybe you can’t think of a specific topic? Keep reading to learn how to generate new ideas and write a great childhood memories essay.

Receive a plagiarism-free paper tailored to your instructions. Cut 15% off your first order!

🧸 Childhood Memory Essays Topics List

Favorite childhood memory ideas.

• Meeting Santa at a mall
• A gift you’ve created yourself
• First time you stayed up all night
• Your first visit to an amusement park
• Your favorite children’s book or comic
• Your best childhood camping memory
• The craziest fact you’ve learned as a child
• Memory about winning a school competition
• What was the most fun school assignment?
• Your favorite food at the elementary school cafeteria

Early Childhood Memories Essay Topics

Kindergarten is often the place where kids start socializing for the first time. Think about your experiences with friends and teachers, as well as with your family. These topic ideas will help you get on the right track:

• The first day in kindergarten . Kindergarten is a new world for a child. It has an unfamiliar environment, new people, and rules. This essay can aim at discussing feelings and expectations that accompany a child on their first day.
• Describe the first pet you had in early childhood. Almost all families have a pet that they love. Often pets are given to children as presents. This essay can relate the best moments spent with a pet when you were little.
• A relative who was closest to you in early childhood. Every child has a family member with whom they enjoy spending time. It could easily be a parent, a grandparent, a sibling , or perhaps an uncle. Write about exciting moments related to your beloved relatives.
• Your first childhood hobby . Most people had hobbies when they were kids. This initial interest sometimes determines one’s future occupation. Here, you can describe the activities you used to do as a little child. Focus on the events associated with your first hobby.
• Festive events in kindergarten . During the whole year, people celebrate many holidays. Naturally, kindergartens hold festive events to amuse children. This essay can portray the unforgettable celebrations in kindergarten .
• Describe family gatherings from your childhood.
• A typical day in your kindergarten.
• What’s the first birthday celebration you remember?
• Activities or games in kindergarten .
• Your first Halloween costume.
• Things that you didn’t like in kindergarten.
• Write about your relationship with nature in early childhood.
• Describe a performance you took part in when you were little.
• What was the best teacher in your kindergarten like?
• Discuss the book or story you loved the most in early childhood.

Elementary School Memories Essay Topics

Would you like to look back at your elementary school days? This section is just what you need. Check out these ideas and get inspired:

• How you met your first teacher. Teachers lead children through a complicated yet exciting path. That’s why we all remember our teachers, especially the first day of meeting them. This essay can recount the brightest moments associated with this event. Additionally, you might describe the teacher’s appearance and personality .
• The most challenging lesson in elementary school. You can probably recall numerous lessons from your school years. This essay can aim at describing positive and negatives aspects of studies, as well as your favorite classes.
• Memories about extracurricular activities in school. It could be sports, artistic pursuits, or activities related to specific subjects. Describe your personal preferences and say who inspired you to start doing them.
• Celebration events at school. Celebrations create the brightest and most joyful memories. In this essay, you can share personal experiences about such events, be it school performances, shows, or games.
• Who was your best school teacher ? Describe the personalities of your favorite teachers and explain why you liked them.
• Write about a person who helped with school lessons .
• What did your first school building look like?
• Describe what you daydreamed about in school.
• Wonderful hikes or trips organized by the school.
• What were your plans for the future growing up?
• Write about going to a museum with your class.
• Memories of participation in school sports activities.
• Recall your participation in writing for a school newspaper .
• Did you take part in any important school activities or events?

Happy Childhood Memories Essay Topics

When writing about your childhood, you’d probably prefer recalling happy events rather than sad ones. But what if you don’t know which pleasant memory to choose? This list will help you make up your mind!

• The best birthday party ever. Recall the most exciting details associated with it. For example, describe some beautiful presents and a celebratory atmosphere.
• The day you’ve met your first love . Write about the impressions, feelings, and the most treasured memories associated with that day.
• Recall the best day spent with your childhood friend. Recount the activities and events that made you happy.
• The most significant achievement in childhood. Recall your achievements connected with the studies, sports, or arts. You can start by describing the task you’ve had, explain its importance, and thank the people who helped you.
• The day you made somebody happy . This essay can describe the instances where you helped others. What were your motivations, and why did it make you happy?
• Describe the best school gathering you can remember. Schools often organize parties where students can have fun. This essay can recount the circumstances and special moments related to such a party.
• Recall a fictional character you liked the most in childhood.
• Write about the best present you gave to someone when you were little.
• Describe the best surprise made by friends or relatives in childhood.
• The most wonderful journey or trip in childhood.
• A sad event that changed things for the better.
• What were the happiest summer holidays in your childhood like?
• Chronicle the day when your childhood dream came true.
• Write about your childhood fear and how you overcame it.
• Tell about getting a good grade for an important assignment.
• Describe the first home where your family lived.

Funny Childhood Memories Essay Ideas

Writing about a funny event is perhaps the best option you can choose. You’ll enjoy describing it, and your readers will appreciate you for making them laugh! Here are some prompts to kickstart the creative process.

• Recollect your childhood actions that make your relatives laugh. Children often behave in interesting, comical, and amusing ways. This essay can detail some fun moments that your parents remember.
• Amusing and funny moments in your favorite cartoons . You probably remember many great cartoons from your childhood. What made them funny? Do you still find them entertaining?
• The funniest pranks you did at school. If you were a mischievous child, this topic is for you. Recall various funny, elaborate, or even failed pranks you did at school.
• Describe the first time you rode a bicycle . Learning to ride a bike is a staple of many childhoods. It’s challenging, but once you master it, you will never forget how to ride it!
• What tricks used to help you pass difficult exams? Usually, students make cribs or copy someone else’s answers. You can describe more creative ways of passing exams.
• Poking fun at younger siblings . If you have brothers and sisters, you probably tease each other. How do you feel about such activities? Do you both have a good laugh, or did somebody get upset?
• Playing superheroes in childhood. Many children have favorite superheroes such as Batman , Spiderman, Ironman, and others. What were your personal favorites? Did you try to imagine you have superpowers?
• Describe the most ridiculous haircut you’ve had when you were little.
• Funny moments with your school teachers.
• Did you have an imaginary friend? What were they like?
• Trying to cook in childhood.
• What tricks did you use to hide bad marks from your parents?
• Attempts to renovate your childhood room.

Childhood Christmas Memories Topics

Christmas is the favorite holiday of many children. Were you one of them? Choose your essay title from this list on Christmas memories:

Get an originally-written paper according to your instructions!

• What is the best Christmas present from your childhood? Describe the present, the wrapping, and your emotions related to it. Why did you want it so much? You can also try to remember where this present is now.
• Describe a family Christmas trip that you enjoyed the most as a child. Answer the following questions. What were the new places you have seen? What were the new people you met? How much time did you spend there? Did you feel homesick? What did you feel when you returned home?
• What was your favorite pastime during the Christmas holidays in childhood? For example, you can write about watching cartoons or playing with your siblings. Or maybe you enjoyed winter sports and walking with your friends.
• Was Christmas your favorite holiday in childhood? Explain why or why not. Create a list of the things that you did and didn’t enjoy. You can also compare Christmas with other holidays. Find several arguments to defend your opinion.
• Describe the best Christmas present you gave somebody in childhood . It can be something you made yourself or bought. Explain why you chose this gift and what was the recipient’s reaction. What did you want to show with this present? Was it your idea to give it? How did you choose it? Answer these questions in your essay.
• What are your favorite Christmas memories ? You have a wide choice here. You can describe family get-togethers, receiving or giving presents, eating sweets, or having fun while resting from school.
• Describe your favorite childhood Christmas photo . Explain why it is so valuable to you. Define the people or objects in the picture. Try to remember who took it and what camera was they used. Also, provide some information about the time and place.
• Write about your family’s Christmas traditions .
• Describe your favorite Christmas decorations in childhood.
• When was the time you stopped believing in Santa Claus?
• What was your favorite Christmas movie in childhood?
• Write about the Christmas dishes did you enjoy the most as a child.
• What was your favorite Christmas TV special ?
• What were your favorite Christmas songs when you were little?
• Describe the perfect Christmas Eve of your childhood.
• Tell about the friends you liked to invite to your Christmas parties.

These recollections can form a great foundation for your essay. Because childhood is often the best time in a person’s life, writing essays on your childhood experiences can be a real pleasure. If you try to be creative and choose a unique topic, you are sure to succeed in writing an impressive essay.

✍️ “My Childhood Memories” Essay Writing Guide

Writing about your childhood is an exciting assignment that has some peculiarities. Let’s explore some of them.

Childhood Memories Essay: Dos and Don’ts

Your main task is to make the reader feel like they’ve experienced the memory you described. There are certain elements that you can include in your essay to make it stand out. Similarly, some things are better to avoid.

Keep these things in mind, and you will surely write a perfect composition.

Childhood Memories Essay: Step by Step

Follow these steps of the essay writing process, and you will see that writing a good essay on your childhood memories is not as challenging as it may seem.

Narrative Essay on Childhood Memories: Outline

Every essay must have a proper structure. That’s why it’s useful to make a short outline before you start writing. It will keep you from losing your way as you write your essay. It also saves you time! If you have a plan, you won’t miss any important points in your essay.

Your paper should include:

After you’ve finished writing, revise and edit your essay . Make sure your paragraphs are written in a logical order. Read your essay aloud so that you can see how it flows and determine where you need to improve it.

Try our memory-activating prompts and follow these writing tips to compose your perfect childhood memories essay! If you’re not sure that you can write a good paper on your own, you can always ask our experts to help you out.

Further reading:

• School Days Essay: How to Describe a Memorable Event
• Growing Up Essay: Great Ideas for Your College Assignment
• Writing Essay about Someone Who has Made an Impact on Your Life
• Excellent Remembering a Person Essay: Free Writing Guidelines
• Life Experience Essay: How to Write a Brilliant Paper

🔗 References

• The Fate of Childhood Memories: Children Postdated Their Earliest Memories as They Grew Older
• Can You Trust Your Earliest Childhood Memories?: BBC
• How to Start Writing Your Own Childhood Memories for Posterity: HobbyLark
• 650 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing: The New York Times
• Bright Side Readers Shared 14 Childhood Stories and We Plunged Into Their Memories Together: Brightside
• Great Questions: StoryCorps
• Introductions and Conclusions: University of Toronto
• Make a List: Childhood Memories: Practical Parenting
• Tips to Retrieve Old Memories: Harvard University
• Make the Most of Your Memory: 10 Tips for Writing About Your Life: Writer’s Digest
• Childhood Christmas Memories: DNA Explained
• What Do Your Earliest Childhood Memories Say about You?: The Conversation
• Can’t Remember Your Childhood? What Might Be Going On: Healthline
• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to LinkedIn
• Share to email

Just when you think you’re way past the question “How to write an essay?” another one comes. That’s the thing students desperately Google: “What is an informative speech?” And our custom writing experts are here to help you sort this out. Informative speaking is a speech on a completely new issue....

Literature courses are about two things: reading and writing about what you’ve read. For most students, it’s hard enough to understand great pieces of literature, never mind analyzing them. And with so many books and stories out there, choosing one to write about can be a chore. But you’re in...

In school and college, you will be required to write research papers. Yes — papers in the plural. And that’s the first reason you may want to turn to Custom Writing and seek help with research projects. When assigned a paper, the very first undertaking is to choose from a...

The success of any college essay depends on the topic choice. If you want to impress your instructors, your essay needs to be interesting and unique. Don’t know what to write about? We are here to help you! In this article by our Custom-Writing.org team, you will find 335 interesting...

Social studies is an integrated research field. It includes a range of topics on social science and humanities, such as history, culture, geography, sociology, education, etc. A social studies essay might be assigned to any middle school, high school, or college student. It might seem like a daunting task, but...

If you are about to go into the world of graduate school, then one of the first things you need to do is choose from all the possible dissertation topics available to you. This is no small task. You are likely to spend many years researching your Master’s or Ph.D....

Looking for a good argumentative essay topic? In need of a persuasive idea for a research paper? You’ve found the right page! Academic writing is never easy, whether it is for middle school or college. That’s why there are numerous educational materials on composing an argumentative and persuasive essay, for...

Persuasive speech is the art of convincing the audience to understand and trust your opinion. Are you ready to persuade someone in your view? Our list of sports persuasive speech topics will help you find a position to take and defend. If you need more options quick, apart from contents...

When you look for a good research paper topic, you can easily become the severest critic of any proposed idea. Some topics do not interest you at the very least, while others might shock your teachers. Where is the golden mean? Check out this list of top 100 research paper...

Can there possibly be anything fun about academic writing? It seems there is – what are all those fun persuasive speech topics then for, after all? However, creating a bunch of good topics might seem hard the first time around. No need to worry though – there’s always plenty of...

A persuasive speech on any topic is a performance designed to convince people about something and prove your point. Choosing a suitable topic is crucial for your speech’s success. Do you need some help with finding easy topics for a persuasive speech? Then check these fantastic and easy ideas from...

Do you know the secret place where people go to get their good informative speech topics? Looking for an interesting topic for speech? Congratulations, because you’ve just found it! So, if you’re ready to get some really good topics for an informative speech, all you need to do is to...

This is so helpful. I am very happy now, thank you so much😁.

This is soooo helpful, thank you!

Very helpful. Thank you very much.

It was exactly what I was looking for, thank you

I had to write If you had a time machine where would you go and what would you do and who do you talk to? So I wanted to write about childhood But I couldn’t find that I wanted

I liked your explanation of essay writing. Thank you!

That’s very helpful. Thank you so much.

Very good topics

This post has good memorable ideas.

Narrative Essay on Childhood Memory

Jump ahead to:

Here, you will learn how to write a Narrative essay on Childhood Memory by this example.

Introduction

Childhood memories are an important part of our life. The happiest, incredible and unforgettable memories of childhood are quite hard to stop remembering. Childhood is the best part of everybody’s life. Childhood is the best stage of human life where they can spend time without any fear and stress. All of us have had that wonderful time. The excellent part of childhood is spending time with fellow kids. All of us have some good and some horrific memories that we can don’t forget from childhood.

There are plenty of memories that we’ve forgotten and some we can recall slightly. I’m going to share some memories from my childhood that I still can’t forget. I assume these are the golden memories and the time turned into valuable. Childhood is the most exciting and exquisite experience part of our life. It’s far from that phase of our lives while we were free from sorrows and issues. We had no job or whatever to fear about.

Our cherished ones were around us all the time. Mother was there to feed and hug us when we were unwell, dad was there to bring our favourite toys and our buddies lived next to our house. The whole thing was perfect and excellent.

Why do childhood memories matter?

You can never forget childhood memories with friends. If someone remembers the happiest and funniest childhood memories or just think best 10 childhood memories, there are plenty of them! The great experience in our life, if we’ve ever had, is the childhood period.

Our childhood memories play an essential role in our life. They form our destiny and perspective towards life.

If a person experiences an amazing childhood then his personality could be jolly and happy. If a person has an awful experience of his childhood then that experience will stay with him even in adulthood.

What a person learns in his childhood usually stays with him. If he has been taught the significance of discipline, punctuality, ethics, and values since childhood then these values will stay with him throughout his life.

Childhood memories are highly inspired by family and their values, experiences, and interests. They frequently reflect a child’s early skill for remembering things. They can range from the banal to the elegant, from fun to touch, however, most of them are fuzzy and elusive, often misguided and sometimes downright fabricated.

My childhood memories:

I’ve been raised in a big circle of family with lots of loving individuals. I’ve all the lovely memories with them. I especially need to mention my grandmother. She turned into an awesome lady. I have one sibling and we used to play in the park in front of my house.

My father bought us different kinds of toys and playing gadgets. I loved playing cricket since childhood and still play that regularly. My little sister was like my assistant. She used to be a part of every activity that I do.

We used to steal fruits from the garden that my grandma made. I still can sense the smell and taste of those fruits when I look back at the memories. My dad was a very busy man, but still, he spent sufficient time with us. I can recall a picnic at a zoo where the whole family went.

My mother took some delicious food items there. I can’t recall what precisely the dishes had been, but they were great in taste. That was an exceptional day. We sometimes visited our native village and that was a fine moment for me and my cousins.

We got sufficient space to run, play soccer, and do all the stuff that we can’t do in the town. When I remember my childhood, that takes a large part there. Because I’ve so many brilliant memories related to village life.

My First Day at school:

The first day at school is a lovely memory that I can recall clearly. The day was a very special event for me. I was very excited. I’ve been getting ready for school and working very hard for three months. My mother was also working very hard to teach me all the simple things including alphabets and some rhymes.

I was quite confident and I got my new school dress, school bag, some books, and new shoes. Finally, the day came when I went to school. This is pretty a famous school in the city. My parents took me to the principal’s room.

He was a gentleman and he greeted us properly and asked us to sit down. I can recall he asked me some simple questions and I answered them confidently. He called an assistant staff and sent me to my classroom. A class was taking place there already and I joined it.

There were many boys and girls of my age and made a few friends on the first day. I went back and found my parents awaiting me. That was a pleasant experience for me. I will never forget that day. My parents were very supportive and that’s why the whole thing was easy for me.

Conclusion:

Childhood memories are very essential in our life. We should remind ourselves of all the lovely moments. Whenever we recall our childhood memories it makes us laugh and we feel very joyful.

• Essay on Rainy Season in 1000 words for 5-12 | Download free PDF
• Essay on Diwali in 600-700 words for Class/ Grade 5-12 | Free PDF

Download Pdf of Narrative Essay on Childhood Memory

If you want to Download Narrative Essay on Childhood Memory simply click on the given link.

1 thought on “Narrative Essay on Childhood Memory in 700-800 words | Free Pdf”

Hii, Thanks for visiting our blog to know the “Narrative Essay on Childhood Memory” and if you have any doubts or suggestions. Please comment below.

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

Narrative Essay on Childhood Memories

Childhood memories are the treasures of our past, vividly painting the innocence, adventures, and joy of our early years. These memories, both sweet and bittersweet, form the mosaic of our identity, influencing who we become. This essay delves into the essence of childhood memories, exploring their impact and significance through a personal journey back in time.

The Magic of Childhood

Childhood: a period of life where every day feels like a new adventure, filled with curiosity and wonder. My childhood was no different. It was a time when the smallest things felt like grand discoveries, from finding a caterpillar in the backyard to the first time I rode a bike without training wheels. These moments, though seemingly small, are monumental in the eyes of a child. They represent growth, learning, and the boundless joy of living.

A Journey Back in Time

One of my most cherished memories takes me back to my grandmother’s house, a quaint cottage nestled in the heart of the countryside. It was a place out of a storybook, surrounded by lush gardens and towering trees that whispered secrets with the wind. My summers there were filled with endless days of exploration, from the crack of dawn until the stars claimed the sky.

The Garden Adventures

The garden was a magical realm where imagination had no bounds. My cousins and I would embark on epic adventures, pretending to be explorers in a mystical land. We built forts out of branches and leaves, declaring them castles of ancient times. The garden was our kingdom, and in it, we were invincible. The laughter and shouts of our play still echo in my mind, a reminder of the carefree joy of youth.

Lessons Learned

Amidst the fun and games, childhood also presented its set of challenges and lessons. I recall a particular rainy day when our garden escapades led to a muddy disaster. Our clothes were stained, and the indoors became a canvas for our muddy footprints. The scolding that followed taught us the importance of responsibility and the consequences of our actions. Yet, even in that moment of admonition, there was love and the gentle guidance towards making better choices.

The Power of Friendship

Childhood is also a time when friendships are formed, bonds that often last a lifetime. I met my best friend under the most unusual circumstances, a mishap during a school play where a missed cue turned into a comedy of errors. Instead of embarrassment, we found laughter and a friendship that stood the test of time. It was through these friendships that I learned the value of trust, support, and the sheer joy of having someone to share life’s moments with.

As the years passed, the innocence of childhood gradually gave way to the responsibilities of adulthood. The endless days of play were replaced by schedules and commitments. Yet, the memories of those carefree days remain, a beacon of light guiding me through life’s challenges. They remind me to find joy in the simple things, to approach life with curiosity, and to cherish the bonds formed in the innocence of childhood.

Childhood memories are more than just moments of the past; they are the foundation upon which we build our future. They teach us lessons, shape our values, and influence our paths. As I reflect on my journey through childhood, I am grateful for the experiences that shaped me, the challenges that strengthened me, and the joy that filled my days. These memories are a precious gift, a reminder of a time of innocence and wonder that continues to inspire and guide me as I navigate the complexities of adulthood.

Narrative Essay Generator

Text prompt

• Instructive
• Professional

Compose a narrative essay about a student's first day at a new school

Develop a narrative essay on a memorable school field trip.

The Ultimate Narrative Essay Guide for Beginners

A narrative essay tells a story in chronological order, with an introduction that introduces the characters and sets the scene. Then a series of events leads to a climax or turning point, and finally a resolution or reflection on the experience.

Speaking of which, are you in sixes and sevens about narrative essays? Don’t worry this ultimate expert guide will wipe out all your doubts. So let’s get started.

Table of Contents

Everything You Need to Know About Narrative Essay

What is a narrative essay.

When you go through a narrative essay definition, you would know that a narrative essay purpose is to tell a story. It’s all about sharing an experience or event and is different from other types of essays because it’s more focused on how the event made you feel or what you learned from it, rather than just presenting facts or an argument. Let’s explore more details on this interesting write-up and get to know how to write a narrative essay.

Elements of a Narrative Essay

Here’s a breakdown of the key elements of a narrative essay:

A narrative essay has a beginning, middle, and end. It builds up tension and excitement and then wraps things up in a neat package.

Real people, including the writer, often feature in personal narratives. Details of the characters and their thoughts, feelings, and actions can help readers to relate to the tale.

It’s really important to know when and where something happened so we can get a good idea of the context. Going into detail about what it looks like helps the reader to really feel like they’re part of the story.

Conflict or Challenge 

A story in a narrative essay usually involves some kind of conflict or challenge that moves the plot along. It could be something inside the character, like a personal battle, or something from outside, like an issue they have to face in the world.

Theme or Message

A narrative essay isn’t just about recounting an event – it’s about showing the impact it had on you and what you took away from it. It’s an opportunity to share your thoughts and feelings about the experience, and how it changed your outlook.

Emotional Impact

The author is trying to make the story they’re telling relatable, engaging, and memorable by using language and storytelling to evoke feelings in whoever’s reading it.

Narrative essays let writers have a blast telling stories about their own lives. It’s an opportunity to share insights and impart wisdom, or just have some fun with the reader. Descriptive language, sensory details, dialogue, and a great narrative voice are all essentials for making the story come alive.

The Purpose of a Narrative Essay

A narrative essay is more than just a story – it’s a way to share a meaningful, engaging, and relatable experience with the reader. Includes:

Sharing Personal Experience

Narrative essays are a great way for writers to share their personal experiences, feelings, thoughts, and reflections. It’s an opportunity to connect with readers and make them feel something.

Entertainment and Engagement

The essay attempts to keep the reader interested by using descriptive language, storytelling elements, and a powerful voice. It attempts to pull them in and make them feel involved by creating suspense, mystery, or an emotional connection.

Conveying a Message or Insight

Narrative essays are more than just a story – they aim to teach you something. They usually have a moral lesson, a new understanding, or a realization about life that the author gained from the experience.

Building Empathy and Understanding

By telling their stories, people can give others insight into different perspectives, feelings, and situations. Sharing these tales can create compassion in the reader and help broaden their knowledge of different life experiences.

Inspiration and Motivation

Stories about personal struggles, successes, and transformations can be really encouraging to people who are going through similar situations. It can provide them with hope and guidance, and let them know that they’re not alone.

Reflecting on Life’s Significance

These essays usually make you think about the importance of certain moments in life or the impact of certain experiences. They make you look deep within yourself and ponder on the things you learned or how you changed because of those events.

Demonstrating Writing Skills

Coming up with a gripping narrative essay takes serious writing chops, like vivid descriptions, powerful language, timing, and organization. It’s an opportunity for writers to show off their story-telling abilities.

Preserving Personal History

Sometimes narrative essays are used to record experiences and special moments that have an emotional resonance. They can be used to preserve individual memories or for future generations to look back on.

Cultural and Societal Exploration

Personal stories can look at cultural or social aspects, giving us an insight into customs, opinions, or social interactions seen through someone’s own experience.

Format of a Narrative Essay

Narrative essays are quite flexible in terms of format, which allows the writer to tell a story in a creative and compelling way. Here’s a quick breakdown of the narrative essay format, along with some examples:

Introduction

Set the scene and introduce the story.

Engage the reader and establish the tone of the narrative.

Hook: Start with a captivating opening line to grab the reader’s attention. For instance:

Example:  “The scorching sun beat down on us as we trekked through the desert, our water supply dwindling.”

Background Information: Provide necessary context or background without giving away the entire story.

Example:  “It was the summer of 2015 when I embarked on a life-changing journey to…”

Thesis Statement or Narrative Purpose

Present the main idea or the central message of the essay.

Offer a glimpse of what the reader can expect from the narrative.

Thesis Statement: This isn’t as rigid as in other essays but can be a sentence summarizing the essence of the story.

Example:  “Little did I know, that seemingly ordinary hike would teach me invaluable lessons about resilience and friendship.”

Body Paragraphs

Present the sequence of events in chronological order.

Develop characters, setting, conflict, and resolution.

Story Progression : Describe events in the order they occurred, focusing on details that evoke emotions and create vivid imagery.

Example : Detail the trek through the desert, the challenges faced, interactions with fellow hikers, and the pivotal moments.

Character Development : Introduce characters and their roles in the story. Show their emotions, thoughts, and actions.

Example : Describe how each character reacted to the dwindling water supply and supported each other through adversity.

Dialogue and Interactions : Use dialogue to bring the story to life and reveal character personalities.

Example : “Sarah handed me her last bottle of water, saying, ‘We’re in this together.'”

Reach the peak of the story, the moment of highest tension or significance.

Turning Point: Highlight the most crucial moment or realization in the narrative.

Example:  “As the sun dipped below the horizon and hope seemed lost, a distant sound caught our attention—the rescue team’s helicopters.”

Provide closure to the story.

Reflect on the significance of the experience and its impact.

Reflection : Summarize the key lessons learned or insights gained from the experience.

Example : “That hike taught me the true meaning of resilience and the invaluable support of friendship in challenging times.”

Closing Thought : End with a memorable line that reinforces the narrative’s message or leaves a lasting impression.

Example : “As we boarded the helicopters, I knew this adventure would forever be etched in my heart.”

Example Summary:

Imagine a narrative about surviving a challenging hike through the desert, emphasizing the bonds formed and lessons learned. The narrative essay structure might look like starting with an engaging scene, narrating the hardships faced, showcasing the characters’ resilience, and culminating in a powerful realization about friendship and endurance.

Different Types of Narrative Essays

There are a bunch of different types of narrative essays – each one focuses on different elements of storytelling and has its own purpose. Here’s a breakdown of the narrative essay types and what they mean.

Personal Narrative

Description : Tells a personal story or experience from the writer’s life.

Purpose: Reflects on personal growth, lessons learned, or significant moments.

Example of Narrative Essay Types:

Topic : “The Day I Conquered My Fear of Public Speaking”

Focus: Details the experience, emotions, and eventual triumph over a fear of public speaking during a pivotal event.

Descriptive Narrative

Description : Emphasizes vivid details and sensory imagery.

Purpose : Creates a sensory experience, painting a vivid picture for the reader.

Topic : “A Walk Through the Enchanted Forest”

Focus : Paints a detailed picture of the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings experienced during a walk through a mystical forest.

Autobiographical Narrative

Description: Chronicles significant events or moments from the writer’s life.

Purpose: Provides insights into the writer’s life, experiences, and growth.

Topic: “Lessons from My Childhood: How My Grandmother Shaped Who I Am”

Focus: Explores pivotal moments and lessons learned from interactions with a significant family member.

Experiential Narrative

Description: Relays experiences beyond the writer’s personal life.

Purpose: Shares experiences, travels, or events from a broader perspective.

Topic: “Volunteering in a Remote Village: A Journey of Empathy”

Focus: Chronicles the writer’s volunteering experience, highlighting interactions with a community and personal growth.

Literary Narrative

Description: Incorporates literary elements like symbolism, allegory, or thematic explorations.

Purpose: Uses storytelling for deeper explorations of themes or concepts.

Topic: “The Symbolism of the Red Door: A Journey Through Change”

Focus: Uses a red door as a symbol, exploring its significance in the narrator’s life and the theme of transition.

Historical Narrative

Description: Recounts historical events or periods through a personal lens.

Purpose: Presents history through personal experiences or perspectives.

Topic: “A Grandfather’s Tales: Living Through the Great Depression”

Focus: Shares personal stories from a family member who lived through a historical era, offering insights into that period.

Digital or Multimedia Narrative

Description: Incorporates multimedia elements like images, videos, or audio to tell a story.

Purpose: Explores storytelling through various digital platforms or formats.

Topic: “A Travel Diary: Exploring Europe Through Vlogs”

Focus: Combines video clips, photos, and personal narration to document a travel experience.

How to Choose a Topic for Your Narrative Essay?

Selecting a compelling topic for your narrative essay is crucial as it sets the stage for your storytelling. Choosing a boring topic is one of the narrative essay mistakes to avoid . Here’s a detailed guide on how to choose the right topic:

Reflect on Personal Experiences

• Significant Moments:

Moments that had a profound impact on your life or shaped your perspective.

Example: A moment of triumph, overcoming a fear, a life-changing decision, or an unforgettable experience.

• Emotional Resonance:

Events that evoke strong emotions or feelings.

Example: Joy, fear, sadness, excitement, or moments of realization.

• Lessons Learned:

Experiences that taught you valuable lessons or brought about personal growth.

Example: Challenges that led to personal development, shifts in mindset, or newfound insights.

Explore Unique Perspectives

• Uncommon Experiences:

Unique or unconventional experiences that might captivate the reader’s interest.

Example: Unusual travels, interactions with different cultures, or uncommon hobbies.

• Different Points of View:

Stories from others’ perspectives that impacted you deeply.

Example: A family member’s story, a friend’s experience, or a historical event from a personal lens.

Focus on Specific Themes or Concepts

• Themes or Concepts of Interest:

Themes or ideas you want to explore through storytelling.

Example: Friendship, resilience, identity, cultural diversity, or personal transformation.

• Symbolism or Metaphor:

Using symbols or metaphors as the core of your narrative.

Example: Exploring the symbolism of an object or a place in relation to a broader theme.

Consider Your Audience and Purpose

• Relevance to Your Audience:

Topics that resonate with your audience’s interests or experiences.

Example: Choose a relatable theme or experience that your readers might connect with emotionally.

• Impact or Message:

What message or insight do you want to convey through your story?

Example: Choose a topic that aligns with the message or lesson you aim to impart to your readers.

Brainstorm and Evaluate Ideas

• Free Writing or Mind Mapping:

Process: Write down all potential ideas without filtering. Mind maps or free-writing exercises can help generate diverse ideas.

• Evaluate Feasibility:

The depth of the story, the availability of vivid details, and your personal connection to the topic.

Imagine you’re considering topics for a narrative essay. You reflect on your experiences and decide to explore the topic of “Overcoming Stage Fright: How a School Play Changed My Perspective.” This topic resonates because it involves a significant challenge you faced and the personal growth it brought about.

Narrative Essay Topics

50 easy narrative essay topics.

• Learning to Ride a Bike
• My First Day of School
• A Surprise Birthday Party
• The Day I Got Lost
• Visiting a Haunted House
• An Encounter with a Wild Animal
• My Favorite Childhood Toy
• The Best Vacation I Ever Had
• An Unforgettable Family Gathering
• Conquering a Fear of Heights
• A Special Gift I Received
• Moving to a New City
• The Most Memorable Meal
• Getting Caught in a Rainstorm
• An Act of Kindness I Witnessed
• The First Time I Cooked a Meal
• My Experience with a New Hobby
• The Day I Met My Best Friend
• A Hike in the Mountains
• Learning a New Language
• An Embarrassing Moment
• Dealing with a Bully
• My First Job Interview
• A Sporting Event I Attended
• The Scariest Dream I Had
• Helping a Stranger
• The Joy of Achieving a Goal
• A Road Trip Adventure
• Overcoming a Personal Challenge
• The Significance of a Family Tradition
• An Unusual Pet I Owned
• A Misunderstanding with a Friend
• Exploring an Abandoned Building
• My Favorite Book and Why
• The Impact of a Role Model
• A Cultural Celebration I Participated In
• A Valuable Lesson from a Teacher
• A Trip to the Zoo
• An Unplanned Adventure
• Volunteering Experience
• A Moment of Forgiveness
• A Decision I Regretted
• A Special Talent I Have
• The Importance of Family Traditions
• The Thrill of Performing on Stage
• A Moment of Sudden Inspiration
• The Meaning of Home
• Learning to Play a Musical Instrument
• A Childhood Memory at the Park
• Witnessing a Beautiful Sunset

Narrative Essay Topics for College Students

• Discovering a New Passion
• Overcoming Academic Challenges
• Navigating Cultural Differences
• Embracing Independence: Moving Away from Home
• Exploring Career Aspirations
• Coping with Stress in College
• The Impact of a Mentor in My Life
• Balancing Work and Studies
• Facing a Fear of Public Speaking
• Exploring a Semester Abroad
• The Evolution of My Study Habits
• Volunteering Experience That Changed My Perspective
• The Role of Technology in Education
• Finding Balance: Social Life vs. Academics
• Learning a New Skill Outside the Classroom
• Reflecting on Freshman Year Challenges
• The Joys and Struggles of Group Projects
• My Experience with Internship or Work Placement
• Challenges of Time Management in College
• Redefining Success Beyond Grades
• The Influence of Literature on My Thinking
• The Impact of Social Media on College Life
• Overcoming Procrastination
• Lessons from a Leadership Role
• Exploring Diversity on Campus
• Exploring Passion for Environmental Conservation
• An Eye-Opening Course That Changed My Perspective
• Living with Roommates: Challenges and Lessons
• The Significance of Extracurricular Activities
• The Influence of a Professor on My Academic Journey
• Discussing Mental Health in College
• The Evolution of My Career Goals
• Confronting Personal Biases Through Education
• The Experience of Attending a Conference or Symposium
• Challenges Faced by Non-Native English Speakers in College
• The Impact of Traveling During Breaks
• Exploring Identity: Cultural or Personal
• The Impact of Music or Art on My Life
• Addressing Diversity in the Classroom
• Exploring Entrepreneurial Ambitions
• My Experience with Research Projects
• Overcoming Impostor Syndrome in College
• The Importance of Networking in College
• Finding Resilience During Tough Times
• The Impact of Global Issues on Local Perspectives
• The Influence of Family Expectations on Education
• Lessons from a Part-Time Job
• Exploring the College Sports Culture
• The Role of Technology in Modern Education
• The Journey of Self-Discovery Through Education

Narrative Essay Comparison

Narrative essay vs. descriptive essay.

Here’s our first narrative essay comparison! While both narrative and descriptive essays focus on vividly portraying a subject or an event, they differ in their primary objectives and approaches. Now, let’s delve into the nuances of comparison on narrative essays.

Narrative Essay:

Storytelling: Focuses on narrating a personal experience or event.

Chronological Order: Follows a structured timeline of events to tell a story.

Message or Lesson: Often includes a central message, moral, or lesson learned from the experience.

Engagement: Aims to captivate the reader through a compelling storyline and character development.

First-Person Perspective: Typically narrated from the writer’s point of view, using “I” and expressing personal emotions and thoughts.

Plot Development: Emphasizes a plot with a beginning, middle, climax, and resolution.

Character Development: Focuses on describing characters, their interactions, emotions, and growth.

Conflict or Challenge: Usually involves a central conflict or challenge that drives the narrative forward.

Dialogue: Incorporates conversations to bring characters and their interactions to life.

Reflection: Concludes with reflection or insight gained from the experience.

Descriptive Essay:

Vivid Description: Aims to vividly depict a person, place, object, or event.

Imagery and Details: Focuses on sensory details to create a vivid image in the reader’s mind.

Emotion through Description: Uses descriptive language to evoke emotions and engage the reader’s senses.

Painting a Picture: Creates a sensory-rich description allowing the reader to visualize the subject.

Imagery and Sensory Details: Focuses on providing rich sensory descriptions, using vivid language and adjectives.

Point of Focus: Concentrates on describing a specific subject or scene in detail.

Spatial Organization: Often employs spatial organization to describe from one area or aspect to another.

Objective Observations: Typically avoids the use of personal opinions or emotions; instead, the focus remains on providing a detailed and objective description.

Comparison:

Focus: Narrative essays emphasize storytelling, while descriptive essays focus on vividly describing a subject or scene.

Perspective: Narrative essays are often written from a first-person perspective, while descriptive essays may use a more objective viewpoint.

Purpose: Narrative essays aim to convey a message or lesson through a story, while descriptive essays aim to paint a detailed picture for the reader without necessarily conveying a specific message.

Narrative Essay vs. Argumentative Essay

The narrative essay and the argumentative essay serve distinct purposes and employ different approaches:

Engagement and Emotion: Aims to captivate the reader through a compelling story.

Reflective: Often includes reflection on the significance of the experience or lessons learned.

First-Person Perspective: Typically narrated from the writer’s point of view, sharing personal emotions and thoughts.

Plot Development: Emphasizes a storyline with a beginning, middle, climax, and resolution.

Message or Lesson: Conveys a central message, moral, or insight derived from the experience.

Argumentative Essay:

Persuasion and Argumentation: Aims to persuade the reader to adopt the writer’s viewpoint on a specific topic.

Logical Reasoning: Presents evidence, facts, and reasoning to support a particular argument or stance.

Debate and Counterarguments: Acknowledge opposing views and counter them with evidence and reasoning.

Thesis Statement: Includes a clear thesis statement that outlines the writer’s position on the topic.

Thesis and Evidence: Starts with a strong thesis statement and supports it with factual evidence, statistics, expert opinions, or logical reasoning.

Counterarguments: Addresses opposing viewpoints and provides rebuttals with evidence.

Logical Structure: Follows a logical structure with an introduction, body paragraphs presenting arguments and evidence, and a conclusion reaffirming the thesis.

Formal Language: Uses formal language and avoids personal anecdotes or emotional appeals.

Objective: Argumentative essays focus on presenting a logical argument supported by evidence, while narrative essays prioritize storytelling and personal reflection.

Purpose: Argumentative essays aim to persuade and convince the reader of a particular viewpoint, while narrative essays aim to engage, entertain, and share personal experiences.

Structure: Narrative essays follow a storytelling structure with character development and plot, while argumentative essays follow a more formal, structured approach with logical arguments and evidence.

In essence, while both essays involve writing and presenting information, the narrative essay focuses on sharing a personal experience, whereas the argumentative essay aims to persuade the audience by presenting a well-supported argument.

Narrative Essay vs. Personal Essay

While there can be an overlap between narrative and personal essays, they have distinctive characteristics:

Storytelling: Emphasizes recounting a specific experience or event in a structured narrative form.

Engagement through Story: Aims to engage the reader through a compelling story with characters, plot, and a central theme or message.

Reflective: Often includes reflection on the significance of the experience and the lessons learned.

First-Person Perspective: Typically narrated from the writer’s viewpoint, expressing personal emotions and thoughts.

Plot Development: Focuses on developing a storyline with a clear beginning, middle, climax, and resolution.

Character Development: Includes descriptions of characters, their interactions, emotions, and growth.

Central Message: Conveys a central message, moral, or insight derived from the experience.

Personal Essay:

Exploration of Ideas or Themes: Explores personal ideas, opinions, or reflections on a particular topic or subject.

Expression of Thoughts and Opinions: Expresses the writer’s thoughts, feelings, and perspectives on a specific subject matter.

Reflection and Introspection: Often involves self-reflection and introspection on personal experiences, beliefs, or values.

Varied Structure and Content: Can encompass various forms, including memoirs, personal anecdotes, or reflections on life experiences.

Flexibility in Structure: Allows for diverse structures and forms based on the writer’s intent, which could be narrative-like or more reflective.

Theme-Centric Writing: Focuses on exploring a central theme or idea, with personal anecdotes or experiences supporting and illustrating the theme.

Expressive Language: Utilizes descriptive and expressive language to convey personal perspectives, emotions, and opinions.

Focus: Narrative essays primarily focus on storytelling through a structured narrative, while personal essays encompass a broader range of personal expression, which can include storytelling but isn’t limited to it.

Structure: Narrative essays have a more structured plot development with characters and a clear sequence of events, while personal essays might adopt various structures, focusing more on personal reflection, ideas, or themes.

Intent: While both involve personal experiences, narrative essays emphasize telling a story with a message or lesson learned, while personal essays aim to explore personal thoughts, feelings, or opinions on a broader range of topics or themes.

A narrative essay is more than just telling a story. It’s also meant to engage the reader, get them thinking, and leave a lasting impact. Whether it’s to amuse, motivate, teach, or reflect, these essays are a great way to communicate with your audience. This interesting narrative essay guide was all about letting you understand the narrative essay, its importance, and how can you write one.

Order Original Papers & Essays

Your First Custom Paper Sample is on Us!

Timely Deliveries

No Plagiarism & AI

100% Refund

Try Our Free Paper Writing Service

Related blogs.

Connections with Writers and support

Privacy and Confidentiality Guarantee

Average Quality Score

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 3 great narrative essay examples + tips for writing.

General Education

A narrative essay is one of the most intimidating assignments you can be handed at any level of your education. Where you've previously written argumentative essays that make a point or analytic essays that dissect meaning, a narrative essay asks you to write what is effectively a story .

But unlike a simple work of creative fiction, your narrative essay must have a clear and concrete motif —a recurring theme or idea that you’ll explore throughout. Narrative essays are less rigid, more creative in expression, and therefore pretty different from most other essays you’ll be writing.

But not to fear—in this article, we’ll be covering what a narrative essay is, how to write a good one, and also analyzing some personal narrative essay examples to show you what a great one looks like.

What Is a Narrative Essay?

At first glance, a narrative essay might sound like you’re just writing a story. Like the stories you're used to reading, a narrative essay is generally (but not always) chronological, following a clear throughline from beginning to end. Even if the story jumps around in time, all the details will come back to one specific theme, demonstrated through your choice in motifs.

Unlike many creative stories, however, your narrative essay should be based in fact. That doesn’t mean that every detail needs to be pure and untainted by imagination, but rather that you shouldn’t wholly invent the events of your narrative essay. There’s nothing wrong with inventing a person’s words if you can’t remember them exactly, but you shouldn’t say they said something they weren’t even close to saying.

Another big difference between narrative essays and creative fiction—as well as other kinds of essays—is that narrative essays are based on motifs. A motif is a dominant idea or theme, one that you establish before writing the essay. As you’re crafting the narrative, it’ll feed back into your motif to create a comprehensive picture of whatever that motif is.

For example, say you want to write a narrative essay about how your first day in high school helped you establish your identity. You might discuss events like trying to figure out where to sit in the cafeteria, having to describe yourself in five words as an icebreaker in your math class, or being unsure what to do during your lunch break because it’s no longer acceptable to go outside and play during lunch. All of those ideas feed back into the central motif of establishing your identity.

The important thing to remember is that while a narrative essay is typically told chronologically and intended to read like a story, it is not purely for entertainment value. A narrative essay delivers its theme by deliberately weaving the motifs through the events, scenes, and details. While a narrative essay may be entertaining, its primary purpose is to tell a complete story based on a central meaning.

Unlike other essay forms, it is totally okay—even expected—to use first-person narration in narrative essays. If you’re writing a story about yourself, it’s natural to refer to yourself within the essay. It’s also okay to use other perspectives, such as third- or even second-person, but that should only be done if it better serves your motif. Generally speaking, your narrative essay should be in first-person perspective.

Though your motif choices may feel at times like you’re making a point the way you would in an argumentative essay, a narrative essay’s goal is to tell a story, not convince the reader of anything. Your reader should be able to tell what your motif is from reading, but you don’t have to change their mind about anything. If they don’t understand the point you are making, you should consider strengthening the delivery of the events and descriptions that support your motif.

Narrative essays also share some features with analytical essays, in which you derive meaning from a book, film, or other media. But narrative essays work differently—you’re not trying to draw meaning from an existing text, but rather using an event you’ve experienced to convey meaning. In an analytical essay, you examine narrative, whereas in a narrative essay you create narrative.

The structure of a narrative essay is also a bit different than other essays. You’ll generally be getting your point across chronologically as opposed to grouping together specific arguments in paragraphs or sections. To return to the example of an essay discussing your first day of high school and how it impacted the shaping of your identity, it would be weird to put the events out of order, even if not knowing what to do after lunch feels like a stronger idea than choosing where to sit. Instead of organizing to deliver your information based on maximum impact, you’ll be telling your story as it happened, using concrete details to reinforce your theme.

3 Great Narrative Essay Examples

One of the best ways to learn how to write a narrative essay is to look at a great narrative essay sample. Let’s take a look at some truly stellar narrative essay examples and dive into what exactly makes them work so well.

A Ticket to the Fair by David Foster Wallace

Today is Press Day at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield, and I’m supposed to be at the fairgrounds by 9:00 A.M. to get my credentials. I imagine credentials to be a small white card in the band of a fedora. I’ve never been considered press before. My real interest in credentials is getting into rides and shows for free. I’m fresh in from the East Coast, for an East Coast magazine. Why exactly they’re interested in the Illinois State Fair remains unclear to me. I suspect that every so often editors at East Coast magazines slap their foreheads and remember that about 90 percent of the United States lies between the coasts, and figure they’ll engage somebody to do pith-helmeted anthropological reporting on something rural and heartlandish. I think they asked me to do this because I grew up here, just a couple hours’ drive from downstate Springfield. I never did go to the state fair, though—I pretty much topped out at the county fair level. Actually, I haven’t been back to Illinois for a long time, and I can’t say I’ve missed it.

Throughout this essay, David Foster Wallace recounts his experience as press at the Illinois State Fair. But it’s clear from this opening that he’s not just reporting on the events exactly as they happened—though that’s also true— but rather making a point about how the East Coast, where he lives and works, thinks about the Midwest.

In his opening paragraph, Wallace states that outright: “Why exactly they’re interested in the Illinois State Fair remains unclear to me. I suspect that every so often editors at East Coast magazines slap their foreheads and remember that about 90 percent of the United States lies between the coasts, and figure they’ll engage somebody to do pith-helmeted anthropological reporting on something rural and heartlandish.”

Not every motif needs to be stated this clearly , but in an essay as long as Wallace’s, particularly since the audience for such a piece may feel similarly and forget that such a large portion of the country exists, it’s important to make that point clear.

But Wallace doesn’t just rest on introducing his motif and telling the events exactly as they occurred from there. It’s clear that he selects events that remind us of that idea of East Coast cynicism , such as when he realizes that the Help Me Grow tent is standing on top of fake grass that is killing the real grass beneath, when he realizes the hypocrisy of craving a corn dog when faced with a real, suffering pig, when he’s upset for his friend even though he’s not the one being sexually harassed, and when he witnesses another East Coast person doing something he wouldn’t dare to do.

Wallace is literally telling the audience exactly what happened, complete with dates and timestamps for when each event occurred. But he’s also choosing those events with a purpose—he doesn’t focus on details that don’t serve his motif. That’s why he discusses the experiences of people, how the smells are unappealing to him, and how all the people he meets, in cowboy hats, overalls, or “black spandex that looks like cheesecake leotards,” feel almost alien to him.

All of these details feed back into the throughline of East Coast thinking that Wallace introduces in the first paragraph. He also refers back to it in the essay’s final paragraph, stating:

At last, an overarching theory blooms inside my head: megalopolitan East Coasters’ summer treats and breaks and literally ‘getaways,’ flights-from—from crowds, noise, heat, dirt, the stress of too many sensory choices….The East Coast existential treat is escape from confines and stimuli—quiet, rustic vistas that hold still, turn inward, turn away. Not so in the rural Midwest. Here you’re pretty much away all the time….Something in a Midwesterner sort of actuates , deep down, at a public event….The real spectacle that draws us here is us.

Throughout this journey, Wallace has tried to demonstrate how the East Coast thinks about the Midwest, ultimately concluding that they are captivated by the Midwest’s less stimuli-filled life, but that the real reason they are interested in events like the Illinois State Fair is that they are, in some ways, a means of looking at the East Coast in a new, estranging way.

The reason this works so well is that Wallace has carefully chosen his examples, outlined his motif and themes in the first paragraph, and eventually circled back to the original motif with a clearer understanding of his original point.

When outlining your own narrative essay, try to do the same. Start with a theme, build upon it with examples, and return to it in the end with an even deeper understanding of the original issue. You don’t need this much space to explore a theme, either—as we’ll see in the next example, a strong narrative essay can also be very short.

Death of a Moth by Virginia Woolf

After a time, tired by his dancing apparently, he settled on the window ledge in the sun, and, the queer spectacle being at an end, I forgot about him. Then, looking up, my eye was caught by him. He was trying to resume his dancing, but seemed either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of the window-pane; and when he tried to fly across it he failed. Being intent on other matters I watched these futile attempts for a time without thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without considering the reason of its failure. After perhaps a seventh attempt he slipped from the wooden ledge and fell, fluttering his wings, on to his back on the window sill. The helplessness of his attitude roused me. It flashed upon me that he was in difficulties; he could no longer raise himself; his legs struggled vainly. But, as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help him to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness were the approach of death. I laid the pencil down again.

In this essay, Virginia Woolf explains her encounter with a dying moth. On surface level, this essay is just a recounting of an afternoon in which she watched a moth die—it’s even established in the title. But there’s more to it than that. Though Woolf does not begin her essay with as clear a motif as Wallace, it’s not hard to pick out the evidence she uses to support her point, which is that the experience of this moth is also the human experience.

In the title, Woolf tells us this essay is about death. But in the first paragraph, she seems to mostly be discussing life—the moth is “content with life,” people are working in the fields, and birds are flying. However, she mentions that it is mid-September and that the fields were being plowed. It’s autumn and it’s time for the harvest; the time of year in which many things die.

In this short essay, she chronicles the experience of watching a moth seemingly embody life, then die. Though this essay is literally about a moth, it’s also about a whole lot more than that. After all, moths aren’t the only things that die—Woolf is also reflecting on her own mortality, as well as the mortality of everything around her.

At its core, the essay discusses the push and pull of life and death, not in a way that’s necessarily sad, but in a way that is accepting of both. Woolf begins by setting up the transitional fall season, often associated with things coming to an end, and raises the ideas of pleasure, vitality, and pity.

At one point, Woolf tries to help the dying moth, but reconsiders, as it would interfere with the natural order of the world. The moth’s death is part of the natural order of the world, just like fall, just like her own eventual death.

All these themes are set up in the beginning and explored throughout the essay’s narrative. Though Woolf doesn’t directly state her theme, she reinforces it by choosing a small, isolated event—watching a moth die—and illustrating her point through details.

With this essay, we can see that you don’t need a big, weird, exciting event to discuss an important meaning. Woolf is able to explore complicated ideas in a short essay by being deliberate about what details she includes, just as you can be in your own essays.

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

On the twenty-ninth of July, in 1943, my father died. On the same day, a few hours later, his last child was born. Over a month before this, while all our energies were concentrated in waiting for these events, there had been, in Detroit, one of the bloodiest race riots of the century. A few hours after my father’s funeral, while he lay in state in the undertaker’s chapel, a race riot broke out in Harlem. On the morning of the third of August, we drove my father to the graveyard through a wilderness of smashed plate glass.

Like Woolf, Baldwin does not lay out his themes in concrete terms—unlike Wallace, there’s no clear sentence that explains what he’ll be talking about. However, you can see the motifs quite clearly: death, fatherhood, struggle, and race.

Throughout the narrative essay, Baldwin discusses the circumstances of his father’s death, including his complicated relationship with his father. By introducing those motifs in the first paragraph, the reader understands that everything discussed in the essay will come back to those core ideas. When Baldwin talks about his experience with a white teacher taking an interest in him and his father’s resistance to that, he is also talking about race and his father’s death. When he talks about his father’s death, he is also talking about his views on race. When he talks about his encounters with segregation and racism, he is talking, in part, about his father.

Because his father was a hard, uncompromising man, Baldwin struggles to reconcile the knowledge that his father was right about many things with his desire to not let that hardness consume him, as well.

Baldwin doesn’t explicitly state any of this, but his writing so often touches on the same motifs that it becomes clear he wants us to think about all these ideas in conversation with one another.

At the end of the essay, Baldwin makes it more clear:

This fight begins, however, in the heart and it had now been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair. This intimation made my heart heavy and, now that my father was irrecoverable, I wished that he had been beside me so that I could have searched his face for the answers which only the future would give me now.

Here, Baldwin ties together the themes and motifs into one clear statement: that he must continue to fight and recognize injustice, especially racial injustice, just as his father did. But unlike his father, he must do it beginning with himself—he must not let himself be closed off to the world as his father was. And yet, he still wishes he had his father for guidance, even as he establishes that he hopes to be a different man than his father.

In this essay, Baldwin loads the front of the essay with his motifs, and, through his narrative, weaves them together into a theme. In the end, he comes to a conclusion that connects all of those things together and leaves the reader with a lasting impression of completion—though the elements may have been initially disparate, in the end everything makes sense.

You can replicate this tactic of introducing seemingly unattached ideas and weaving them together in your own essays. By introducing those motifs, developing them throughout, and bringing them together in the end, you can demonstrate to your reader how all of them are related. However, it’s especially important to be sure that your motifs and clear and consistent throughout your essay so that the conclusion feels earned and consistent—if not, readers may feel mislead.

5 Key Tips for Writing Narrative Essays

Narrative essays can be a lot of fun to write since they’re so heavily based on creativity. But that can also feel intimidating—sometimes it’s easier to have strict guidelines than to have to make it all up yourself. Here are a few tips to keep your narrative essay feeling strong and fresh.

Develop Strong Motifs

Motifs are the foundation of a narrative essay . What are you trying to say? How can you say that using specific symbols or events? Those are your motifs.

In the same way that an argumentative essay’s body should support its thesis, the body of your narrative essay should include motifs that support your theme.

Try to avoid cliches, as these will feel tired to your readers. Instead of roses to symbolize love, try succulents. Instead of the ocean representing some vast, unknowable truth, try the depths of your brother’s bedroom. Keep your language and motifs fresh and your essay will be even stronger!

Use First-Person Perspective

In many essays, you’re expected to remove yourself so that your points stand on their own. Not so in a narrative essay—in this case, you want to make use of your own perspective.

Sometimes a different perspective can make your point even stronger. If you want someone to identify with your point of view, it may be tempting to choose a second-person perspective. However, be sure you really understand the function of second-person; it’s very easy to put a reader off if the narration isn’t expertly deployed.

If you want a little bit of distance, third-person perspective may be okay. But be careful—too much distance and your reader may feel like the narrative lacks truth.

That’s why first-person perspective is the standard. It keeps you, the writer, close to the narrative, reminding the reader that it really happened. And because you really know what happened and how, you’re free to inject your own opinion into the story without it detracting from your point, as it would in a different type of essay.

Stick to the Truth

Your essay should be true. However, this is a creative essay, and it’s okay to embellish a little. Rarely in life do we experience anything with a clear, concrete meaning the way somebody in a book might. If you flub the details a little, it’s okay—just don’t make them up entirely.

Also, nobody expects you to perfectly recall details that may have happened years ago. You may have to reconstruct dialog from your memory and your imagination. That’s okay, again, as long as you aren’t making it up entirely and assigning made-up statements to somebody.

Dialog is a powerful tool. A good conversation can add flavor and interest to a story, as we saw demonstrated in David Foster Wallace’s essay. As previously mentioned, it’s okay to flub it a little, especially because you’re likely writing about an experience you had without knowing that you’d be writing about it later.

However, don’t rely too much on it. Your narrative essay shouldn’t be told through people explaining things to one another; the motif comes through in the details. Dialog can be one of those details, but it shouldn’t be the only one.

Use Sensory Descriptions

Because a narrative essay is a story, you can use sensory details to make your writing more interesting. If you’re describing a particular experience, you can go into detail about things like taste, smell, and hearing in a way that you probably wouldn’t do in any other essay style.

These details can tie into your overall motifs and further your point. Woolf describes in great detail what she sees while watching the moth, giving us the sense that we, too, are watching the moth. In Wallace’s essay, he discusses the sights, sounds, and smells of the Illinois State Fair to help emphasize his point about its strangeness. And in Baldwin’s essay, he describes shattered glass as a “wilderness,” and uses the feelings of his body to describe his mental state.

All these descriptions anchor us not only in the story, but in the motifs and themes as well. One of the tools of a writer is making the reader feel as you felt, and sensory details help you achieve that.

What’s Next?

Looking to brush up on your essay-writing capabilities before the ACT? This guide to ACT English will walk you through some of the best strategies and practice questions to get you prepared!

Part of practicing for the ACT is ensuring your word choice and diction are on point. Check out this guide to some of the most common errors on the ACT English section to be sure that you're not making these common mistakes!

A solid understanding of English principles will help you make an effective point in a narrative essay, and you can get that understanding through taking a rigorous assortment of high school English classes !

Melissa Brinks graduated from the University of Washington in 2014 with a Bachelor's in English with a creative writing emphasis. She has spent several years tutoring K-12 students in many subjects, including in SAT prep, to help them prepare for their college education.

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

Improve With Our Famous Guides

• For All Students

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points

How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 800 on Each SAT Section:

Score 800 on SAT Math

Score 800 on SAT Reading

Score 800 on SAT Writing

Series: How to Get to 600 on Each SAT Section:

Score 600 on SAT Math

Score 600 on SAT Reading

Score 600 on SAT Writing

Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests

What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For?

15 Strategies to Improve Your SAT Essay

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points

How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 36 on Each ACT Section:

36 on ACT English

36 on ACT Math

36 on ACT Reading

36 on ACT Science

Series: How to Get to 24 on Each ACT Section:

24 on ACT English

24 on ACT Math

24 on ACT Reading

24 on ACT Science

What ACT target score should you be aiming for?

ACT Vocabulary You Must Know

ACT Writing: 15 Tips to Raise Your Essay Score

How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League

How to Get a Perfect 4.0 GPA

How to Write an Amazing College Essay

What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?

Is the ACT easier than the SAT? A Comprehensive Guide

Should you retake your SAT or ACT?

When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Stay Informed

Get the latest articles and test prep tips!

Looking for Graduate School Test Prep?

Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here:

GRE Online Prep Blog

GMAT Online Prep Blog

TOEFL Online Prep Blog

Holly R. "I am absolutely overjoyed and cannot thank you enough for helping me!”

30,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Meet top uk universities from the comfort of your home, here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

• School Education /

Essay on Childhood Memories in 400 Words

• Updated on  
• Dec 8, 2023

‘We all have lovely childhood memories, which were part of our development stage. Childhood is the most precious time of our life when we have no worries about school, career, or life. All we enjoyed was playing and eating delicious food.’

‘One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is to have a happy childhood.’ – Agatha Christie

Check out the latest updates on all board exams 2024

‘We all loved summer vacations, where we were allowed to enjoy a month-long vacation with our friends and families. However, a beautiful and fun childhood doesn’t determine a prosperous future. Diving into nostalgic childhood memories is something we all enjoy.’

Remembering little things like running wild on grass, flying kites, playing marbles, sliding on the seesaw, etc. reminds us of those good old memories. Family gatherings and celebrations form a tapestry strand, remembering the joy and togetherness. The smell of grandmothers’ home-cooked meals passing through my nostrils, the sound of relatives sharing anecdotes, and the sparkle in the eyes of grandparents imparted a sense of belonging and continuity. These gatherings served as anchors in the tumultuous sea of life, reminding us of our roots and the importance of human connection.’

Bedtime stories are one of the treasured memories of our childhood, where secrets were whispered under the twinkling lights. The rustle of pages turning in a favorite storybook, the comfort of a soft blanket, and the reassuring presence of a parent reading aloud – these moments were the alchemy that transformed ordinary nights into magical adventures. The tales became not just narratives but a source of moral compass, imparting lessons that lingered far beyond the pages.

‘When we are old and failing, it is the memories of childhood which can be summoned most clearly.’ – Dan Simmons

However, childhood memories are not immune to the bittersweet tinge of nostalgia. The fleeting nature of time becomes palpable as we grow older, and the places and faces that once defined our world may change or fade away. The innocence of our youth is a fragile bloom that caves to the relentless march of time.

Childhood memories are priceless experiences, which play an important role in shaping our character and contributing to the mosaic of our lives. Nostalgia, the sentimental longing for the past, is a testament to the enduring impact of those formative years. As we navigate the complexities of adulthood, the allure of revisiting the playgrounds of our youth and the warmth of familial embraces becomes a poignant journey, a celebration of the innocence that once defined us.

Also Read: Essay on Information Technology in 400 Words

Also Read: Essay on Eid ul-Fitr in 400 Words

100 Words Paragraph on Childhood Memories

Related Articles

Ans: We all get lost in childhood memories, as those were some golden days of our lives. We all remember our childhood friends, the games we played, family gatherings, and so many other beautiful memories. This young time of life is cherished by everyone, as it laid the foundation of our character. Our childhood was full of joy and happiness, without worrying about the lengthy and boring homework and any other work-related problems. It was the time of vacations, family picnics, trips and other outings with our loved ones.

Ans: Childhood memories are the golden days of our lives. Childhood days are priceless. We all love to dive into those nostalgic memories. Childhood is an important part of our lives. Childhood memories full of joy and happiness don’t guarantee a prosperous future. As a child, we all think of our futures, and now, it’s the opposite.

Ans: A person can recall their childhood memories by trying to remember sensory information or perceptions they may have had at the time, such as: looking at old photographs and videos; revisiting childhood places, like playground, grandmother’s house, etc.; taking therapies, etc.

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu .

Shiva Tyagi

With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Contact no. *

Connect With Us

30,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today.

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

January 2024

September 2024

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

Have something on your mind?

Make your study abroad dream a reality in January 2022 with

India's Biggest Virtual University Fair

Most Popular

12 days ago

How to Write a Hypothesis

How to cite scientific papers, how to write an informative essay, future-proof careers: which jobs will ai not replace in the next 5 years, quetext vs grammarly, playground memory essay sample, example.

Anyways, after being locked in a locker, put headfirst into a toilet, punched and pushed around, called names, played jokes on, and other abuse, I finally had enough. I cracked. I could not psychologically take anymore hurt and punctures to my self-esteem.

A day or two after my birthday, I was on the school basketball court, shooting hoops. My mother had given me a basketball as a gift, and I was reveling in the fun of this new sport. But as expected (though I did not think about it at the time), another child started to bother me. He came up to me, and without a word, took the basketball out of my hands as I was dribbling. I was so shocked and emotionally tied to that gift that without a moment’s notice, I punched the kid in the face. I knocked him down and he immediately ran away crying. I never asked if he was playfully taking the ball from me, but I had had enough bullying in my day to react strongly to such an action.

Apparently, the boy went to the principal and reported my violence. I was called to the principal’s office during my next class, and walked in with my own form of ethics. The boy had been a bully, and he deserved a repercussion. However, the principal and I did not see eye to eye, naturally. He called my mother about the incident, and she was surprised that I would do such a thing. I had always been the quiet kid, playing with toys by himself, or tagging along with other children as more of a witness than a major participant. No one’s mother expects their child to punch someone, but it happens for certain reasons. In my case, I had been dominated by my classmates for years, and that pent-up anger and shame resulted in a violent action.

From then on, I figured out that I did not need to be bullied. I could take action. I found that my anger and resentment gave me a wild strength, which was unmatched by the usual fighting powers of a calm kid. In a way, I went to the dark side (in reference to Star Wars). I found a way to combat my enemies, but not in the healthiest of avenues.

In middle school, I dug my nails into a boy’s arm and restrained him after he made several verbal attacks towards me. He was much bigger and taller than me, but my anger guided me towards illogic and throwing estimating my chances to the wind.

In high school, a junior beat up my twin brother. My brother and I were both freshmen at the time. When I saw him next, I choked him and even dragged him up to a light post, where I banged his head on a metal pole. His girlfriend was watching and was terrified. I do not know exactly what I had come over me, but from that time in elementary school where I first used my fists to resolve an issue, I did not look back. I had found a solution that made me feel strong, confident, and able to take on the world. However, there was one problem: it put holes in my bedroom door, it led to unnecessary attacks on my family, and I found that the sensation of not being able to control my anger troubling.

Thank heavens I started to meditate. By the time I was 19 years old, bullies were not a problem anymore, and I had no use for my boiling anger. When I started to meditate every day, I found that the person beyond the anger was much more agreeable to be around. I wanted to be more like that person every day. So, I continued to meditate daily, and eventually I became the person that I wanted to be. I learned that anger was a temporary solution, but I did not need to drag it on throughout the years. Now, I am much more satisfied to be peaceful inside.

Follow us on Reddit for more insights and updates.

Comments (1)

Welcome to A*Help comments!

We’re all about debate and discussion at A*Help.

We value the diverse opinions of users, so you may find points of view that you don’t agree with. And that’s cool. However, there are certain things we’re not OK with: attempts to manipulate our data in any way, for example, or the posting of discriminative, offensive, hateful, or disparaging material.

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

This source is beautiful

More from Narrative Essay Examples and Samples

Nov 23 2023

Who Dies In Romeo And Juliet

May 05 2023

Applying epidemiology to program design for chronic disease Essay Sample, Example

Determination of Death and Informed Consent Essay Sample, Example

Remember Me

Is English your native language ? Yes No

What is your profession ? Student Teacher Writer Other

Forgotten Password?

Username or Email

Childhood Memories Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on childhood memories.

Memories are a vital component of our bodies. They shape our personality as all our knowledge and past experiences are stored there. All of us have memories, both good and bad. You have memories from long ago and also from recent times. Furthermore, some memories help us get by tough days and make us cheerful on good days.

Memories are the little things which help in running our lives smoothly. In other words, memories are irreplaceable and they are very dear to us. They help us learn from our mistakes and make us better. In my opinion, one’s childhood memories are the dearest to anyone. They help in keeping the child in you alive. Moreover, it also is a reason for our smiles in between adult life.

Importance of Childhood Memories

Childhood memories are very important in our lives. It makes us remember the best times of our lives. They shape our thinking and future. When one has good childhood memories, they grow up to be happy individuals. However, if one has traumatic childhood memories, it affects their adult life gravely.

Thus, we see how childhood memories shape our future. They do not necessarily define us but they surely play a great role. It is not important that someone with traumatic childhood memories may turn out to be not well. People get past their traumatic experiences and grow as human beings. But, these memories play a great role in this process as well.

Most importantly, childhood memories keep the inner child alive. No matter how old we get, there is always a child within each one of us. He/She comes out at different times.

For instance, some may act like a child on seeing swings; the other may get excited like a child when they see ice cream. All this happens so because we have our childhood memories reminding us of the times associated with the things we get excited about. Therefore, childhood memories play a great role in our lives.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

My Childhood Memories

Growing up, I had a very loving family. I had three siblings with whom I used to play a lot. I remember very fondly the games we use to play. Especially, in the evenings, we used to go out in the park with our sports equipment. Each day we played different games, for example, football on one day and cricket on the other. These memories of playing in the park are very dear to me.

Furthermore, I remember clearly the aroma of my grandmother’s pickles. I used to help her whenever she made pickles. We used to watch her do the magic of combining the oils and spices to make delicious pickles. Even today, I can sometimes smell her pickles whenever I look back at this memory.

Most importantly, I remember this instance very clearly when we went out for a picnic with my family. We paid a visit to the zoo and had an incredible day. My mother packed delectable dishes which we ate in the zoo. My father clicked so many pictures that day. When I look at these pictures, the memory is so clear, it seems like it happened just yesterday. Thus, my childhood memories are very dear to me and make me smile when I feel low.

Q.1 Why is Childhood Memories important?

A.1 Childhood memories shape our personality and future. They remind us of the good times and help us get by on tough days. Moreover, they remind us of past experiences and mistakes which help us improve ourselves.

Q.2 What can be a common childhood memory for all?

A.2 In my opinion, a childhood memory most of us have in common is the first day of school. Most of us remember what we felt like on the first day. In addition, our birthdays are also very common childhood memory that reminds us of gifts and celebrations on that day.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

Narrative Essay

Narrative Essay Examples

10+ Interesting Narrative Essay Examples Plus Writing Tips!

People also read

Narrative Essay - A Complete Writing Guide with Examples

Writing a Personal Narrative Essay: Everything You Need to Know

Best Narrative Essay Topics 2023 for Students

Crafting a Winning Narrative Essay Outline: A Step-by-Step Guide

Many students struggle with crafting engaging and impactful narrative essays. They often find it challenging to weave their personal experiences into coherent and compelling stories.

If you’re having a hard time, don't worry! 

We’ve compiled a range of narrative essay examples that will serve as helpful tools for you to get started. These examples will provide a clear path for crafting engaging and powerful narrative essays.

So, keep reading and find our expertly written examples!

• 1. Narrative Essay Definition
• 2. Narrative Essay Examples
• 3. Narrative Essay Examples for Students
• 4. Narrative Essay Topics
• 5. Narrative Essay Writing Tips

Narrative Essay Definition

Writing a narrative essay is a unique form of storytelling that revolves around personal experiences, aiming to immerse the reader in the author's world. It's a piece of writing that delves into the depths of thoughts and feelings. 

In a narrative essay, life experiences take center stage, serving as the main substance of the story. It's a powerful tool for writers to convey a personal journey, turning experiences into a captivating tale. This form of storytelling is an artful display of emotions intended to engage readers, leaving the reader feeling like they are a part of the story.

By focusing on a specific theme, event, emotions, and reflections, a narrative essay weaves a storyline that leads the reader through the author's experiences. 

The Essentials of Narrative Essays

Let's start with the basics. The four types of essays are argumentative essays , descriptive essays , expository essays , and narrative essays.

The goal of a narrative essay is to tell a compelling tale from one person's perspective. A narrative essay uses all components you’d find in a typical story, such as a beginning, middle, and conclusion, as well as plot, characters, setting, and climax.

The narrative essay's goal is the plot, which should be detailed enough to reach a climax. Here's how it works:

• It's usually presented in chronological order.
• It has a function. This is typically evident in the thesis statement's opening paragraph.
• It may include speech.
• It's told with sensory details and vivid language, drawing the reader in. All of these elements are connected to the writer's major argument in some way.

Before writing your essay, make sure you go through a sufficient number of narrative essay examples. These examples will help you in knowing the dos and don’ts of a good narrative essay.

It is always a better option to have some sense of direction before you start anything. Below, you can find important details and a bunch of narrative essay examples. These examples will also help you build your content according to the format. 

Here is a how to start a narrative essay example:

Sample Narrative Essay

The examples inform the readers about the writing style and structure of the narration. The essay below will help you understand how to create a story and build this type of essay in no time.

Here is another narrative essay examples 500 words:

Narrative Essay Examples for Students

Narrative essays offer students a platform to express their experiences and creativity. These examples show how to effectively structure and present personal stories for education.

Here are some helpful narrative essay examples:

Narrative Essay Examples Middle School

Narrative Essay Examples for Grade 7

Narrative Essay Examples for Grade 8

Grade 11 Narrative Essay Examples

Narrative Essay Example For High School

Narrative Essay Example For College

Personal Narrative Essay Example

Descriptive Narrative Essay Example

3rd Person Narrative Essay Example

Narrative Essay Topics

Here are some narrative essay topics to help you get started with your narrative essay writing.

• When I got my first bunny
• When I moved to Canada
• I haven’t experienced this freezing temperature ever before
• The moment I won the basketball finale
• A memorable day at the museum
• How I talk to my parrot
• The day I saw the death
• When I finally rebelled against my professor

Need more topics? Check out these extensive narrative essay topics to get creative ideas!

Narrative Essay Writing Tips

Narrative essays give you the freedom to be creative, but it can be tough to make yours special. Use these tips to make your story interesting:

• Share your story from a personal viewpoint, engaging the reader with your experiences.
• Use vivid descriptions to paint a clear picture of the setting, characters, and emotions involved.
• Organize events in chronological order for a smooth and understandable narrative.
• Bring characters to life through their actions, dialogue, and personalities.
• Employ dialogue sparingly to add realism and progression to the narrative.
• Engage readers by evoking emotions through your storytelling.
• End with reflection or a lesson learned from the experience, providing insight.

Now you have essay examples and tips to help you get started, you have a solid starting point for crafting compelling narrative essays.

However, if storytelling isn't your forte, you can always turn to our essay service for help.

Our writers are specialists who can tackle any type of essay with great skill. With their experience, you get a top-quality, 100% plagiarism-free essay everytime.

So, let our narrative essay writing service make sure your narrative essay stands out. Order now!

Write Essay Within 60 Seconds!

Caleb S. has been providing writing services for over five years and has a Masters degree from Oxford University. He is an expert in his craft and takes great pride in helping students achieve their academic goals. Caleb is a dedicated professional who always puts his clients first.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That’s our Job!

Keep reading

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

50 Engaging Narrative Essay Topics for High Schoolers

Do you know how to improve your profile for college applications.

See how your profile ranks among thousands of other students using CollegeVine. Calculate your chances at your dream schools and learn what areas you need to improve right now — it only takes 3 minutes and it's 100% free.

Show me what areas I need to improve

What’s Covered:

Narrative essays vs. analytical essays, how to pick the right narrative essay topic, elements of a strong narrative essay, engaging narrative essay topics for high schoolers, where to get your narrative essay edited for free.

Narrative essays are an extensive form of writing that gives readers the opportunity to follow along as a person goes through a journey or sets of experiences. Rather than providing analytic insight, narrative essays simply share a story and offer a first-person account. These essays may seem easy to write at first, but it takes a certain finesse to write a narrative essay that is interesting, cohesive, and well-researched. Whether you’re looking for a unique topic to write about, or just want some new inspiration, CollegeVine is here to help! These 50 narrative essay topics are engaging, unique and will have you writing in no time.

A narrative essay is a great way to express your personal experiences and opinions, but it is important to remember that this type of essay is different from an analytical paper. In a narrative essay, you do not need to provide background information or explain your thoughts and feelings; instead, you simply tell a story. It’s important to avoid too much telling in your writing; instead, use creative details and vivid imagery to make readers feel as if they are actually right there with you.

Where You Will Encounter Narrative Essays

This type of essay is typically encountered in high school, where students may be required to write personal statements to prepare for their Common App essay . Narrative essays are also commonly seen in AP Language and Composition. Therefore, it’s important you are aware of the style because you are bound to have a narrative essay assignment.  

Of course, before you start writing, it is important to pick the right essay topic. There are many factors involved in the process of picking the perfect narrative essay topic for your story.

You should always choose a topic that you are passionate about, since writing on something you care about will make the process much easier. Not only will it be more interesting to create your paper around something that truly interests you, but it will also allow you to fully express yourself in your essay. You also want to be sure that the topic has enough material to work with. If your chosen topic is too short, you will not have enough content to write a complete paper. For example, if you are writing about your experience getting lost at the mall, make sure that you have enough information to work with to craft an engaging narrative. 

The best topic for an engaging narrative essay is one that focuses on showing versus telling, has a clear structure, and provides a dialogue. These elements come together to form an engaging narrative essay. Regardless of what subject you pick, any topic may be turned into a fascinating, A+ worthy narrative using the tips below.

Show, Don’t Tell

To write a good narrative essay, it’s important to show, not tell. Instead of simply informing your audience, show them what you mean. For example, instead of saying “I was nervous,” you could say “My heart began to race and my stomach filled with butterflies.” Also make sure to use sensory details, such as sights, sounds and tastes, and include a personal reflection at the end of your narrative. 

Begin with a Strong Opening Line

A good narrative essay will begin with an attention-grabbing opening line. But make sure to avoid common clichés, such as “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Instead, come up with something original and specific to you and your situation. For example: “My pre-calc teacher was obsessed with circles. I mean, he even used circular note cards.” Or, “It all started the day my mom brought home a guinea pig.”

Follows a Three-Act Structure

A strong narrative essay follows the same three-act structure as other essays. But in order to make it interesting, you’ll need to come up with a creative way to break things down into sections. For example, using the guinea pig example from above, you could write the following:

• Act 1 – Introduction: The day my mom brought home a guinea pig.
• Act 2 – Conflict: The day I had to say goodbye to my beloved pet.
• Act 3 – Conclusion: Looking back at how much I miss him now that he’s gone.

Conclude with Personal Reflection

To conclude your narrative essay, you’ll want to explain what this specific experience taught you or how you’ve changed. For example, upon realizing that her pre-calc teacher was obsessed with circles, the writer of the previous example begins to notice circular shapes everywhere. Another way to conclude your narrative essay is by touching on how this experience impacted you emotionally. For example, after losing his guinea pig, the writer explains how much he missed it.

Use Dialogue

Include a conversation in your essay to make it come alive. For example, instead of simply saying that you met a new friend, talk about how you introduced yourselves or what they were wearing when you met them.

Discover your chances at hundreds of schools

Our free chancing engine takes into account your history, background, test scores, and extracurricular activities to show you your real chances of admission—and how to improve them.

The following list of 50 narrative essay topics is divided into categories. This will make it easier to find a topic that fits your writing style.

1. What is a childhood song that still sticks with you today?

2. Your first day of Kindergarten

3. Talk about a time when you’re siblings looked up to you

4. Describe the best birthday party you’ve ever had

5. Talk about the best day you ever spent with a childhood friend

6. Explain your first childhood hobby

7. Describe your first halloween costume

8. A family vacation gone wrong

9. Your first family reunion

10. Describe a tradition that is unique to your family

11. Describe your family to a person who’s never met them before

12. What frustrates you most about your family

13. If you could only keep one memory of your family, what would it be and why?

14. Describe a time your family embarrassed you in public

15. The most beautiful place in the world

16. Your favorite season and why

17. If you were a part of nature, what element would you be? Why?

18. When you go outside, which of your senses are you most thankful to have?

19. Describe the first time you witnessed a tornado 

20. Write a poem about your favorite season

21. Describe yourself as one of the four seasons

22. Describe a time in which you felt connected with nature

23. Describe the first time you played an instrument and how you felt

24. What major event would be much worse if music was removed, and why?

25. If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

26. What would a life without music look like?

27. If you could master one instrument, what would it be and why?

Relationships

28. What if you had never met your best friend?

29. Describe a time when you fixed a broken relationship

30. Talk about a movie that defined a relationship for you

31. Describe your first date

32. Describe the first time you made a friend

33. Describe your relationship with your parents

Self Reflection

34. Have you ever fooled someone? If so, describe what happened and how you felt about it

35. What is the worst thing you’ve done to someone else?

36. Write about the difference between how things seem and how they really are. 

37. Have you ever been embarrassed in some way? If so, describe the situation and how it affected you as well as those around you

38. Have you ever witnessed something really beautiful? Describe it

39. Is your glass half empty or half full?

Overcoming Adversity 

40. Have you ever been very afraid of something but tried your hardest to appear fearless? If so, describe that experience

41. When have you ever succeeded when you thought you might fail

42. What are your secret survival strategies?

43. Describe the last time you were stressed and why?

44. Describe a time when you were discriminated against

45. The most memorable class you’ve had and why

46. Your favorite study abroad memory

47. Describe your kindergarten classroom

48. Describe your first teacher

49. The first time you experienced detention

50. Your first field trip

Hopefully these topics will get you thinking about a personal experience that could make for a thoughtful and engaging narrative essay. Remember, a strong narrative essay must contain relatable details and a clear flow that keeps the reader entertained and engaged to read all the way to the end.

If you need some additional guidance on your narrative essay, use CollegeVine’s free peer review essay tool to get feedback for free!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

• CBSE Class 10th
• CBSE Class 12th
• UP Board 10th
• UP Board 12th
• Bihar Board 10th
• Bihar Board 12th
• Top Schools in India
• Top Schools in Delhi
• Top Schools in Mumbai
• Top Schools in Chennai
• Top Schools in Hyderabad
• Top Schools in Kolkata
• Top Schools in Pune
• Top Schools in Bangalore

Products & Resources

• JEE Main Knockout April
• Free Sample Papers
• Free Ebooks
• NCERT Notes
• NCERT Syllabus
• NCERT Books
• RD Sharma Solutions
• Navodaya Vidyalaya Admission 2024-25
• NCERT Solutions
• NCERT Solutions for Class 12
• NCERT Solutions for Class 11
• NCERT solutions for Class 10
• NCERT solutions for Class 9
• NCERT solutions for Class 8
• NCERT Solutions for Class 7
• JEE Main 2024
• MHT CET 2024
• JEE Advanced 2024
• BITSAT 2024
• View All Engineering Exams
• Colleges Accepting B.Tech Applications
• Top Engineering Colleges in India
• Engineering Colleges in India
• Engineering Colleges in Tamil Nadu
• Engineering Colleges Accepting JEE Main
• Top IITs in India
• Top NITs in India
• Top IIITs in India
• JEE Main College Predictor
• JEE Main Rank Predictor
• MHT CET College Predictor
• AP EAMCET College Predictor
• GATE College Predictor
• KCET College Predictor
• JEE Advanced College Predictor
• View All College Predictors
• JEE Main Question Paper
• JEE Main Cutoff
• JEE Main Advanced Admit Card
• AP EAPCET Hall Ticket
• Download E-Books and Sample Papers
• Compare Colleges
• B.Tech College Applications
• KCET Result
• MAH MBA CET Exam
• View All Management Exams

Colleges & Courses

• MBA College Admissions
• MBA Colleges in India
• Top IIMs Colleges in India
• Top Online MBA Colleges in India
• MBA Colleges Accepting XAT Score
• BBA Colleges in India
• XAT College Predictor 2024
• SNAP College Predictor
• NMAT College Predictor
• MAT College Predictor 2024
• CMAT College Predictor 2024
• CAT Percentile Predictor 2023
• CAT 2023 College Predictor
• CMAT 2024 Admit Card
• TS ICET 2024 Hall Ticket
• CMAT Result 2024
• MAH MBA CET Cutoff 2024
• Download Helpful Ebooks
• List of Popular Branches
• QnA - Get answers to your doubts
• IIM Fees Structure
• AIIMS Nursing
• Top Medical Colleges in India
• Top Medical Colleges in India accepting NEET Score
• Medical Colleges accepting NEET
• List of Medical Colleges in India
• List of AIIMS Colleges In India
• Medical Colleges in Maharashtra
• Medical Colleges in India Accepting NEET PG
• NEET College Predictor
• NEET PG College Predictor
• NEET MDS College Predictor
• NEET Rank Predictor
• DNB PDCET College Predictor
• NEET Admit Card 2024
• NEET PG Application Form 2024
• NEET Cut off
• NEET Online Preparation
• Download Helpful E-books
• Colleges Accepting Admissions
• Top Law Colleges in India
• Law College Accepting CLAT Score
• List of Law Colleges in India
• Top Law Colleges in Delhi
• Top NLUs Colleges in India
• Top Law Colleges in Chandigarh
• Top Law Collages in Lucknow

Predictors & E-Books

• CLAT College Predictor
• MHCET Law ( 5 Year L.L.B) College Predictor
• AILET College Predictor
• Sample Papers
• Compare Law Collages
• Careers360 Youtube Channel
• CLAT Syllabus 2025
• CLAT Previous Year Question Paper
• NID DAT Exam
• Pearl Academy Exam

Predictors & Articles

• NIFT College Predictor
• UCEED College Predictor
• NID DAT College Predictor
• NID DAT Syllabus 2025
• NID DAT 2025
• Design Colleges in India
• Top NIFT Colleges in India
• Fashion Design Colleges in India
• Top Interior Design Colleges in India
• Top Graphic Designing Colleges in India
• Fashion Design Colleges in Delhi
• Fashion Design Colleges in Mumbai
• Top Interior Design Colleges in Bangalore
• NIFT Result 2024
• NIFT Fees Structure
• NIFT Syllabus 2025
• Free Design E-books
• List of Branches
• Careers360 Youtube channel
• IPU CET BJMC
• JMI Mass Communication Entrance Exam
• IIMC Entrance Exam
• Media & Journalism colleges in Delhi
• Media & Journalism colleges in Bangalore
• Media & Journalism colleges in Mumbai
• List of Media & Journalism Colleges in India
• CA Intermediate
• CA Foundation
• CS Executive
• CS Professional
• Difference between CA and CS
• Difference between CA and CMA
• CA Full form
• CMA Full form
• CS Full form
• CA Salary In India

Top Courses & Careers

• Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com)
• Master of Commerce (M.Com)
• Company Secretary
• Cost Accountant
• Charted Accountant
• Credit Manager
• Financial Advisor
• Top Commerce Colleges in India
• Top Government Commerce Colleges in India
• Top Private Commerce Colleges in India
• Top M.Com Colleges in Mumbai
• Top B.Com Colleges in India
• IT Colleges in Tamil Nadu
• IT Colleges in Uttar Pradesh
• MCA Colleges in India
• BCA Colleges in India

Quick Links

• Information Technology Courses
• Programming Courses
• Web Development Courses
• Data Analytics Courses
• Big Data Analytics Courses
• RUHS Pharmacy Admission Test
• Top Pharmacy Colleges in India
• Pharmacy Colleges in Pune
• Pharmacy Colleges in Mumbai
• Colleges Accepting GPAT Score
• Pharmacy Colleges in Lucknow
• List of Pharmacy Colleges in Nagpur
• GPAT Result
• GPAT 2024 Admit Card
• GPAT Question Papers
• NCHMCT JEE 2024
• Mah BHMCT CET
• Top Hotel Management Colleges in Delhi
• Top Hotel Management Colleges in Hyderabad
• Top Hotel Management Colleges in Mumbai
• Top Hotel Management Colleges in Tamil Nadu
• Top Hotel Management Colleges in Maharashtra
• B.Sc Hotel Management
• Hotel Management
• Diploma in Hotel Management and Catering Technology

Diploma Colleges

• Top Diploma Colleges in Maharashtra
• UPSC IAS 2024
• SSC CGL 2024
• IBPS RRB 2024
• Previous Year Sample Papers
• Free Competition E-books
• Sarkari Result
• QnA- Get your doubts answered
• UPSC Previous Year Sample Papers
• CTET Previous Year Sample Papers
• SBI Clerk Previous Year Sample Papers
• NDA Previous Year Sample Papers

Upcoming Events

• NDA Application Form 2024
• UPSC IAS Application Form 2024
• CDS Application Form 2024
• CTET Admit card 2024
• HP TET Result 2023
• SSC GD Constable Admit Card 2024
• UPTET Notification 2024
• SBI Clerk Result 2024

Other Exams

• SSC CHSL 2024
• UP PCS 2024
• UGC NET 2024
• RRB NTPC 2024
• IBPS PO 2024
• IBPS Clerk 2024
• IBPS SO 2024
• Top University in USA
• Top University in Canada
• Top University in Ireland
• Top Universities in UK
• Top Universities in Australia
• Best MBA Colleges in Abroad
• Business Management Studies Colleges

Top Countries

• Study in USA
• Study in UK
• Study in Canada
• Study in Australia
• Study in Ireland
• Study in Germany
• Study in China
• Study in Europe

Student Visas

• Student Visa Canada
• Student Visa UK
• Student Visa USA
• Student Visa Australia
• Student Visa Germany
• Student Visa New Zealand
• Student Visa Ireland
• CUET PG 2024
• IGNOU B.Ed Admission 2024
• DU Admission 2024
• UP B.Ed JEE 2024
• LPU NEST 2024
• IIT JAM 2024
• IGNOU Online Admission 2024
• Universities in India
• Top Universities in India 2024
• Top Colleges in India
• Top Universities in Uttar Pradesh 2024
• Top Universities in Bihar
• Top Universities in Madhya Pradesh 2024
• Top Universities in Tamil Nadu 2024
• Central Universities in India
• CUET Exam City Intimation Slip 2024
• IGNOU Date Sheet
• CUET Mock Test 2024
• CUET Admit card 2024
• CUET PG Syllabus 2024
• CUET Participating Universities 2024
• CUET Previous Year Question Paper
• CUET Syllabus 2024 for Science Students
• E-Books and Sample Papers
• CUET Exam Pattern 2024
• CUET Exam Date 2024
• CUET Syllabus 2024
• IGNOU Exam Form 2024
• CUET UG Admit Card 2024 (Out) Live
• CUET 2024 Admit Card

Engineering Preparation

• Knockout JEE Main 2024
• Test Series JEE Main 2024
• JEE Main 2024 Rank Booster

Medical Preparation

• Knockout NEET 2024
• Test Series NEET 2024
• Rank Booster NEET 2024

Online Courses

• JEE Main One Month Course
• NEET One Month Course
• IBSAT Free Mock Tests
• IIT JEE Foundation Course
• Knockout BITSAT 2024
• Career Guidance Tool

Top Streams

• IT & Software Certification Courses
• Engineering and Architecture Certification Courses
• Programming And Development Certification Courses
• Business and Management Certification Courses
• Marketing Certification Courses
• Health and Fitness Certification Courses
• Design Certification Courses

Specializations

• Digital Marketing Certification Courses
• Cyber Security Certification Courses
• Artificial Intelligence Certification Courses
• Business Analytics Certification Courses
• Data Science Certification Courses
• Cloud Computing Certification Courses
• Machine Learning Certification Courses
• View All Certification Courses
• UG Degree Courses
• PG Degree Courses
• Short Term Courses
• Free Courses
• Online Degrees and Diplomas
• Compare Courses

Top Providers

• Coursera Courses
• Udemy Courses
• Edx Courses
• Swayam Courses
• upGrad Courses
• Simplilearn Courses
• Great Learning Courses

Childhood Memories Essay

• 100 Words Essay On Childhood Memories

One of the most important things we can treasure throughout our life is our memories. They mould our personalities since they contain all of our information and experiences from the past. We all have memories, both positive and negative. Memories are the small things that make life flow more smoothly. They shape our personalities since they include all of our information and life experiences. The most wonderful and magnificent time of our lives is when we are children. It is that time in our lives when we were without sorrows and concerns. Our adult lives are greatly influenced by the recollections of our youth. They influence our future and way of thinking about the world.

200 Words Essay On Childhood Memories

500 words essay on childhood memories.

Any person's heart has a special space for childhood memories. Childhood is the earliest stage of life, and what a child learns and observes from his or her family, teachers, and classmates will determine what that child learns in the future. Therefore, a child's future and memorable childhood are both the responsibility of parents and other family members.

As one gets older, they become more and more sentimental about their childhood, which is the best time in their lives. People often feel happy when they think back on their youth because it was the most carefree and enjoyable time of their lives.

When I was a kid, I loved spending time with my family. One of my favourite childhood memories is going to the park with my mom and dad.We would go on the swings, play in the sandbox, and go down the slide. It was always so much fun. Another great memory is going camping with my family. We would hike through the woods, roast marshmallows over the campfire, and tell stories around the fire. I loved spending time outdoors and exploring nature. I have so many great childhood memories, and I cherish them all. Spending time with my family was always the best part of my day. I'm so grateful for those memories and they will always be close to my heart.

When we reconnect with our childhood friends, our inner child is always present. No matter how mature we consider ourselves to be, the instant we are with old friends, we revert to being children. When we reunite with old friends after a long absence, memories also drive our conversations. The trip down memory lane is bittersweet because we miss a time that is gone but yet treasure its happiness. Some people might act like children when they see sweets, while others might become enthusiastic when they see swings. Similarly, visiting places that you used to frequent as a child brings back many emotions and memories associated with the place.

Importance of Childhood Memory

Our adult lives are profoundly impacted by our childhood recollections. The happiest moments in our lives come to mind. Our future and mentality are built on the experiences of our childhood. Happy people tend to have fond memories of their childhood. A person's future can also be impacted by unpleasant childhood experiences.

Childhood lessons serve as valuable life lessons and memories for the rest of one's life. It is relevant to issues like family and societal values, morals, understanding the significance of friendships, and treating adults with respect.

Childhood experiences have a profound impact on the development of virtues like self-control and a positive outlook on life. These principles, which are crucial for success in adulthood, cannot be picked up quickly. They must be learned over time.

Although they don't define a person, childhood memories can be very important in one's life. It is not certain that a person with pleasant memories always lives a happy life and a person with sad memories always lives a chaotic life. Difficult childhood experiences might occasionally make a person stronger, empathetic and resilient.

It may be argued that childhood memories keep our inner child alive. Every person always has a child inside of them. At any point in life, it may just appear out of nowhere. It can also be shown in the tiny things we like doing on a daily basis.

My Favourite Childhood Memory

Childhood memories are always fun to recall after a tiring day at work. My fondest memories are all of my friends running together, friends creating mischief together, and playing cricket in the gullies. Summer holidays used to be just as fun and exciting. My friends and I would play football matches where we would imagine ourselves as our favourite football player. The losing team had to buy the winning team chocolates from the neighbourhood shop—we all would share and have a great laugh over it. When not playing football, we would play hide and seek in the gullies. Everyone would tactically hide and control their laughter lest someone finds them and screams ‘Gotcha’. After all the time spent playing outside, we would have to go back home to complete our holiday homework. My mom used to make my favourite meal during the holidays. It was always a pain to imagine the end of summer holidays and going back to school. Childhood was indeed a memorable journey that we still recall after a tiring day.

Applications for Admissions are open.

Aakash iACST Scholarship Test 2024

Get up to 90% scholarship on NEET, JEE & Foundation courses

ALLEN Digital Scholarship Admission Test (ADSAT)

Register FREE for ALLEN Digital Scholarship Admission Test (ADSAT)

JEE Main Important Physics formulas

As per latest 2024 syllabus. Physics formulas, equations, & laws of class 11 & 12th chapters

PW JEE Coaching

Enrol in PW Vidyapeeth center for JEE coaching

PW NEET Coaching

Enrol in PW Vidyapeeth center for NEET coaching

JEE Main Important Chemistry formulas

As per latest 2024 syllabus. Chemistry formulas, equations, & laws of class 11 & 12th chapters

Download Careers360 App's

Regular exam updates, QnA, Predictors, College Applications & E-books now on your Mobile

Certifications

We Appeared in

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Life Experiences — Memories

Essays on Memories

Exploring the depths of memory through essays.

Writing about memories offers a unique opportunity to delve into the personal and the universal, connecting individual experiences with broader themes. Whether reflecting on moments of joy, lessons learned through struggle, or the intricate dance of relationships, memories essays allow writers to explore the fabric of their lives. An important aspect of crafting these essays is not just recounting events but weaving these recollections into narratives that resonate with insight, emotion, and universality.

Choosing the right topic is just the beginning. To truly bring your memories essay to life, consider drawing from a diverse range of experiences and emotions. For those seeking inspiration or examples of how to craft a compelling narrative, we've gathered a collection of memoir examples crafted for college students : these examples can provide valuable insights into structuring your essay, developing your voice, and connecting with your audience.

Top 10 Memories Essay Topics in 2024

• The Moment That Changed Everything: A Reflection on Transformation
• Lessons from the Dinner Table: Family Dynamics and Personal Growth
• Lost and Found: The Journey of Rediscovering Self
• Between the Lines: What My Favorite Book Taught Me About Life
• The Art of Resilience: Overcoming Personal Adversity
• Crossroads of Culture: How My Heritage Shapes My Identity
• The Language of Music: How Melodies Define Moments
• Friendship in the Digital Age: Navigating Bonds and Boundaries
• Unearthing Passions: The Quest for Personal Fulfillment
• The Echoes of Laughter: Finding Joy in Simplicity

Memories of Happiness and Accomplishments in My Life

The role of memorable memories in our lives, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

Memories: The Only Real Treasure in One’s Head

The value of memory in human life, my personal experience: encounter with death, my happiest childhood memories: playing golf with my father, let us write you an essay from scratch.

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Bad Memories of Old that Should Be Locked Up

My most memorable experiences in life, the importance of memories in our life, my favorite memories with my father, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

The Creation of Our Memories

Effect of good and bad memories on attitude and emotion, worst thing i have ever done, my trip to miami shores, florida, how a driving accident affected on my life, necessity and importance of memories for growth, the most memorable moments of fifa world cup 2018, making memories count: kids photography, post-memory and layered memories of vietnamese americans, art and memory, a theme of memories in eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, the process of recollection of memories in nabokov's speak, memory, a hometown acceptance at different periods of life, the effects of the memories of the civil war and the reconstruction on americans, discussion if there any worth of possibility to erase bad memories, the use of own memories in the poems of sylvia plath and ted hughes, the possible ways to strengthen lost memories, a long way gone: uncovering the true fiction behind ishmael beah’s recount of his life story, my emotions from my third first day of school, talking about your life: my move to another continent, relevant topics.

• Law of Life
• Life Changing Experience
• Personal Experience
• Overcoming Obstacles
• Expectations
• Why I Want To Be A Nurse
• Volunteering

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Memory and comprehension of narrative versus expository texts: A meta-analysis

• Theoretical Review
• Open access
• Published: 06 January 2021
• Volume 28 , pages 732–749, ( 2021 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Raymond A. Mar   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5307-7031 1 ,
• Jingyuan Li 1 ,
• Anh T. P. Nguyen 1 &
• Cindy P. Ta 1  

13k Accesses

48 Citations

217 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

We acquire a lot of information about the world through texts, which can be categorized at the broadest level into two primary genres: narratives and exposition. Stories and essays differ across a variety of dimensions, including structure and content, with numerous theories hypothesizing that stories are easier to understand and recall than essays. However, empirical work in this area has yielded mixed results. To synthesize research in this area, we conducted a meta-analysis of experiments in which memory and/or comprehension of narrative and expository texts was investigated. Based on over 75 unique samples and data from more than 33,000 participants, we found that stories were more easily understood and better recalled than essays. Moreover, this result was robust, not influenced by the inclusion of a single effect-size or single study, and not moderated by various study characteristics. This finding has implications for any domain in which acquiring and retaining information is important.

Similar content being viewed by others

Inferential comprehension differences between narrative and expository texts: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Credible narrators and misinformed readers

Do the elderly get the message a comparative study of stories produced verbally and as a text message.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Reading is an important part of everyday life, as it is often the way in which we acquire new information (Stanovich & Cunningham, 1993 ). The texts we read take a variety of different forms, however, with the two broadest genres being narrative and expository texts. Stories and essays differ in many ways, including how they present and organize content. This has led many to theorize that narrative and expository texts might differ in their potential for readers to retain and comprehend the information presented. More specifically, a number of theories predict that narratives should be easier to recall and comprehend than expository texts. However, empirical examinations of this idea have been mixed. Some studies find this theorized advantage for stories in terms of memory and comprehension, but others have found an advantage for essays or no difference at all. We therefore conducted a meta-analysis to synthesize the available literature and uncover whether there is overall support for a difference in the memorability and comprehensibility of narrative and expository texts.

Narrative versus expository texts

Narrative texts are written stories that most often take the form of novels or short stories. These have the goal of entertaining readers (Weaver & Kintsch, 1991 ) and possess a familiar structure. Events are focused on the actions, interactions, and development of characters, with these events organized based on temporal sequence and causal relations (Graesser, Golding, & Long, 1991 ; Tun, 1989 ; Zabrucky & Moore, 1999 ; Zabrucky & Ratner, 1992 ). Story events can thus be considered to follow a set structure known as a story grammar (Graesser et al., 1991 ; Kintsch, 1982 ), which includes the setting, theme, plot, and resolution (Thorndyke, 1977 ). Setting refers to the story’s time and place (Graesser et al., 1991 ; Graesser & Goodman, 1985 ), with the plot centred around the goals of the central character (i.e., the protagonist); these goals drive character actions and emotional reactions. In a story, the goals of different characters inevitably conflict, creating a tension that builds to a climax (De Beaugrande & Colby, 1979 ), followed by a resolution in which goals are either achieved or remain out of reach (Graesser et al., 1991 ). In this way, stories possess a clear and familiar structure, most commonly progressing through a chronological order of goal-centred events (Berman & Nir-Sagiv, 2007 ).

Expository texts, in contrast, are primarily intended to inform rather than entertain, communicating information and ideas about a specific topic (Decker, 1974 ; Graesser et al.,1991; Medina & Pilonieta, 2006 ). These texts can take the form of essays, textbooks, or manuals (Kintsch, 1982 ; Tun, 1989 ; Weaver & Kintsch, 1991 ), and contain descriptions, definitions, ideas, and explanations that are structured and supported by arguments (Boscolo, 1990 ; Mosenthal, 1985 ). The structure of exposition often resembles a pyramid, with the theme introduced first (i.e., the tip of the pyramid) and this theme subsequently elaborated on at length (Collins & Gentner, 1980 ; Graesser & Goodman, 1985 ).

Theoretical differences between narratives and exposition

Based on these differences between stories and essays, researchers have long theorized that narratives might have an advantage over expository texts when it comes to memory and comprehension. Stories are more familiar than essays in many ways, including their resemblance to everyday experience, prevalence throughout human history, and precedence developmentally. In addition, stories are often more emotional than essays, and emotion can aid memory.

Stories may be easier to remember and comprehend than essays because stories resemble our everyday experiences (Bruner, 1986 ; Graesser et al., 1991 ). People experience life in the real world as temporally ordered causal events, organized around personal goals, with the encountering and overcoming of obstacles to these goals resulting in emotional experiences; this parallels the structure of stories (Graesser, McNamara, & Louwerse, 2003 ; Graesser, Singer, & Trabasso, 1994 ). In contrast, expository texts employ different structures depending on their purpose (Meyer, 1985 ), making them less familiar and less predictable. Exacerbating this problem, essays rarely contain the necessary linguistics markers that connect ideas and provide cues regarding the organization of content (e.g., connectives such as “because”; Graesser et al., 2003 ).

Not only the structure but also the content of stories map closely onto our everyday experiences. Stories are predominantly about social relationships: human psychology, interpersonal interactions, and the conflicts that inevitably result from conflicting goals (Mar & Oatley, 2008 ). As a result, the most common themes of stories are intimately familiar to us, topics such as friendship, interpersonal conflict, love, and separation from close others (Hogan, 2003 ; McNamara, Ozuru, & Floyd, 2017 ). Readers have direct, or indirect, experience with these topics and possess ample knowledge of these situations as a result (Gardner, 2004 ). This includes the vocabulary employed to describe these situations (e.g., words for traits, conflicts, and emotions) as they are all things we discuss in everyday life (Gardner, 2004 ). This close parallel between narratives and how we communicate our own experiences has led to stories being described as close to the “language of the mother tongue” (Graesser & Goodman, 1985 ).

In contrast, the content of exposition is often less familiar than what is found in stories, making it more difficult to comprehend and recall. Expository texts often communicate ideas that are new to the reader, and as a result they can contain unfamiliar concepts and vocabulary (Graesser et al., 2003 ; Weaver & Kintsch, 1991 ; Zabrucky & Moore, 1999 ). Furthermore, the content of essays is often complex and abstract, often focusing on situations that readers have not experienced (directly or indirectly) (Best, Floyd, & McNamara, 2008 ; Graesser et al., 2003 ; Hall, Sabey, & McClellan, 2005 ). Because essay content tends not to directly reflect everyday human experience, the vocabulary employed is often informational, scientific, and content-based, and therefore more difficult to understand than that found in stories (Gardner, 2004 ).

Familiarity with the structure and content of a text is referred to as relevant “prior knowledge” (Dochy, Segers, & Buehl, 1999 ), and stories might be more memorable and comprehensible thanks to readers having greater prior knowledge. Prior knowledge aids in the generation of inferences that support comprehension (Shapiro, 2004 ; Trabasso & Magliano, 1996 ) and recall. Readers generate more knowledge-based inferences when reading narratives compared to exposition (Clinton et al., 2020 ; Graesser & Clark, 1985 ), with these inferences explaining events in a text, bringing coherence to the content (Graesser et al., 1994 ; Trabasso & Magliano, 1996 ). For example, in a story, a reader can easily infer that a character will feel hurt if not invited to a party held by friends, without the author having to state this explicitly. This understanding stems from our familiarity with human psychology, even if only through second-hand experiences.

Readers are less likely to benefit from prior knowledge while reading an essay, relative to stories, and are therefore less likely to benefit from easy inferences. This combination could easily put expository texts at a disadvantage when it comes to memory and comprehension (Coté, Goldman, & Saul, 1998 ; McNamara, 2004 ). Readers often encounter expository texts when they do not know much about the content topic (Grabe, 2002 ). In schools, for example, readers are expected to learn new concepts from expository texts, based on little prior knowledge (Armbruster & Nagy, 1992 ; Barton, 1997 ; Grabe, 2002 ). With expository texts, it is rare that readers can rely on common knowledge to generate inferences. Rather, readers must rely on content knowledge of the domain in question (Graesser et al., 2003 ), potentially making essays harder to understand and recall than stories (Graesser et al., 2003 ; McKeown, Beck, Sinatra, & Loxterman, 1992 ; McNamara, Kintsch, Songer, & Kintsch, 1996 ).

Narratives are not only more familiar than essays as a function of their parallel with human experience, they also occupy a more prominent and familiar role throughout human history (Graesser et al., 1991 ; Graesser & Ottati, 1995 ). Before written texts existed, oral storytelling was the primary mode of communication, used to retain and transmit information from generation to generation (Graesser & Ottati, 1995 ; Rubin, 1995 ; Schank & Abelson, 1995 ). Stories were the basis of oral traditions and human memory was the sole vehicle for preserving these traditions, through frequent retelling (Graesser & Ottati, 1995 ; Rubin, 1995 ). For these reasons, stories and storytelling may have afforded our early ancestors with key benefits, including the dissemination of survival-relevant information (Bietti, Tilston, & Bangerter, 2019 ; Boyd, 2009 ; Scalise Sugiyama, 2001 ). Importantly, it is its resemblance to human experience that likely made stories so memorable, and so effective at disseminating complex surivival knowledge across generations of ancestors.

Stories also hold precedence over exposition at the timescale of individual development, perhaps resulting in greater familiarity. We are exposed to stories from the very beginning, from early childhood, often before we even have the capacity to speak or read (Baker & Stein, 1978 ; Spiro & Taylor, 1987 ). This early exposure to narratives continues throughout childhood, with narratives being the most common type of text encountered during early schooling (Leslie & Caldwell, 2017 ). In contrast, there is a relative lack of early exposure to expository texts, with students first being exposed to essays around third grade and onwards (around ages 8–9 years; Spiro & Taylor, 1987 ). From this point, students increasingly encounter expository texts as they progress through school and, eventually, exposition becomes the predominant type of text in high school (Kent, 1984 ). Their late introduction might be another reason why expository texts could be less familiar, and therefore less likely to be remembered and comprehended compared to narrative texts.

A final reason to believe that narratives may be more memorable than expository texts hinges on the ability of emotions to facilitate memory (Hamann, 2001 ). Affectively charged recollections have been dubbed “flash-bulb” memories, to communicate the idea that emotional events are deeply imprinted on the mind, like a flash aiding photography (Winograd & Neisser, 1992 ). This emotional facilitation of memory appears to result from a prioritizing of emotional material when it comes to attention and perception (Brosch, Pourtois, & Sander, 2010 ), with personal relevance playing a key role (Levine & Edelstein, 2009 ). To the extent that stories are better able to evoke strong emotions than expository texts (cf. Mar, Oatley, Djikic, & Mullin, 2011 ), we would expect stories to be better recalled than exposition. The idea that stories are emotional in nature seems obvious, so much so that this is simply assumed by lay people and researchers alike (Oatley, 1991 ). Researchers, for example, use stories to elicit mood for experimental manipulations (e.g., Kazui et al., 2000 ). Empirical evidence for the emotional nature of stories also exists, with one diary study finding that roughly 7% of all emotions were elicited while engaging with narrative (Oatley & Duncan, 1992 ). Similarly, readers experience and mentally represent the emotional states of story protagonists (Gernsbacher, Goldsmith, & Robertson, 1992 ; Laszlo & Cupchik, 1995 ; Oatley, 1999 ), and report emotions occurring frequently while reading (Larsen & Seilman, 1988 ). Notably, studies on emotional memory have also employed stories as stimuli and confirmed that emotional content is better remembered than neutral content (e.g., Cahill, Babinsky, Markowitsch, & McGaugh, 1995 ; Carstensen & Turk-Charles, 1994 ; Kazui et al., 2000 ; McGaugh, 2000 ). It is difficult to imagine that expository texts, in general, have the capacity to elicit emotions to the same extent, or with the same variety, as narratives. This is because exposition lacks the close parallel with human experiences found in stories. Lastly, it should be stressed that this emotional account of why stories might be better understood and remembered than essays is not mutually exclusive to the structural and organizational accounts presented above. Several factors could play independent roles in any observed advantage for narrative. In addition, it should also be noted that not all texts fit easily into these broad categories, such as narrative journalism, which bridges the two approaches (van Krieken & Sanders, in press ).

Empirical research on narrative and expository texts

In light of these theoretical advantages for narrative over exposition, when it comes to memory and comprehension, a number of researchers have investigated this topic using experiments. To do so, researchers randomly assign participants to read either a narrative or an expository passage (a between-subjects design), or read both (a within-subjects design). In some studies, participants listen to audio versions of these texts, rather than read them. But in all cases, comprehension and memory for the texts is measured. Unfortunately, these experiments have yielded mixed results. Some studies do indeed find greater recall or comprehension of narrative texts relative to expository texts (e.g., Best et al., 2008 ; Dal Martello, 1984 ; Tun, 1989 ; Zabrucky & Moore, 1999 ). In contrast, other studies find just the opposite: that expository texts are more easily comprehended and better recalled than narratives (e.g., Diakidoy, 2014 ; Moè & De Beni, 2005 ; Saadatnia, Ketabi, & Tavakoli, 2017 ; Wolfe & Woodwyk, 2010 ). A few studies also report finding no difference between the two genres (e.g., Cunningham & Gall, 1990 ; Kintsch & Young, 1984 ; Roller & Schreiner, 19856 ). Based on these conflicting results, it is evident that a meta-analysis is necessary to establish whether it is possible to detect an overall effect based on the extant evidence. A recent meta-analysis on inferential comprehension found that narrative had an advantage over exposition (Clinton et al., 2020 ). Here, we report the results of a broader, more inclusive meta-analysis, synthesizing the results of existing studies for both memory and comprehension, to uncover whether narrative and exposition differ in this regard.

Identifying and retrieving articles

To identify relevant empirical papers, an extensive literature search was conducted in August 2018. This was then updated in November 2019, when unpublished articles were also solicited from listservs. We systematically searched the following online databases for suitable articles: PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, and Web of Science. In each database, we searched the following terms: narrat* OR story AND exposit* OR prose OR essay OR summary AND recall OR retention OR recognition OR remember OR comprehension OR comprehend OR schema OR retrieval. Results were limited to articles published in English. When possible, the search was confined to empirical studies (i.e., PsycINFO and PsychARTICLES) or journal articles (for Web of Science).

The first search in 2018 yielded a total of 871 articles, with the removal of duplicates resulting in 689 unique papers, including two articles added based on our own expert knowledge. This search was repeated in November 2019 to locate any new papers published since the previous search. This second search employed the same search terms used previously, but was limited to the time period following the previous one. However, it did not result in the identification of any new articles. At this time, we also solicited unpublished work on this topic from several academic listservs (i.e., the Society for Text and Discourse , the Psychonomic Society , the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media , and the UK Literary Association ). We were consequently able to include two unpublished studies, thanks to the generous collaboration of other researchers.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

To be eligible for our meta-analysis, a study was required to meet a set of inclusion criteria. Included studies had to: (1) allow for the comparison of memory and/or comprehension performance between narrative and expository texts; (2) be a true experiment, with proper random assignment and counterbalancing; (3) include a measure of memory (e.g., immediate, delayed, free, or cued recall) or comprehension (e.g., open-ended or closed comprehension questions, sentence verification); and (4) examine non-clinical populations (i.e., no special populations, such as those with a reading disorder).

A set of exclusion criteria was also established. Studies were excluded if: (1) text order was not randomized for a within-subjects design (or randomization was not explicitly mentioned), producing a confound between genre and order; (2) the two genres were read at very different points in time for a within-subjects experiment (e.g., on different days), creating a potential confound between genre and time (i.e., history effects; Campbell & Stanley, 1963 ); (3) studies employed different measures of memory or comprehension for the two genres (e.g., free recall tested for stories, but cued recall for essays); (4) the procedures did not approximate typical leisure reading (e.g., asking participants to read aloud or focus on certain story elements); and (5) no relevant statistics for our purposes were reported (i.e., it was impossible to calculate the requisite effect-size). Although our primary interest was reading, we also included studies employing auditory presentations so that we could explore whether presentation modality moderates any effects.

Coding procedure

Articles were screened for inclusion and coded in early 2019, extracting the statistics required to calculate an effect-size. This entailed the means and standard deviations of task scores, recorded as percentage correct to allow for a direct comparison between text genres. When studies reported standard errors instead of standard deviations, the former were converted into the latter using the following formula: \( \mathrm{SD}=\mathrm{SE}\times \sqrt{\mathrm{n}}. \)

To maximize the information gleaned from each study, all possible relevant comparisons were extracted. For example, if a study employed two measures of memory, genre comparisons for both measures were extracted. Similarly, if the study reported separate statistics for subsets of the sample (e.g., male scores and female scores), these sub-scores were chosen instead of the aggregate. When experiments employed a control condition with no intervention, both pre-test and post-test scores were taken. However, if an experimental intervention was included (e.g., to improve comprehension), only pre-test scores were taken. As a result of this inclusive approach, each article yielded several relevant comparisons. Our statistical approach to meta-analysis models the dependence between effect-sizes, making it possible to include multiple effects per sample.

In addition, we coded several aspects of each study to examine potential moderators. This included information about the study design (e.g., between- or within-subjects), demographic variables (e.g., age of participants), stimuli characteristics (e.g., whether researchers attempted to control for content or difficulty), and dependent variables (e.g., delay between reading and testing). Table 1 provides a description of all the moderator variables that were included in the final analysis.

Coding outcome

Titles and abstracts for the 689 papers were first examined for relevance, resulting in 93 articles selected for closer reading. Based on full-text screening, 80 articles were considered for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Screening and coding of these 80 articles was carried out by 13 independent coders, who each coded a subset after receiving extensive training. Any uncertainty during coding was discussed among the group and a consensus was established. Following the second literature search in 2019, all coding was double-checked and a consensual coding again established. In the end, statistics from a total of 37 articles were extracted, resulting in the compilation of 150 separate effect-sizes, based on 78 different samples, for a total sample of 33,078 participants (Table 2 ). Figure 1 illustrates our process. All of our data are publicly available at: https://osf.io/jx78v/ .

Process for identifying and selecting studies

Statistical analysis

We first calculated effect-sizes for all comparisons (Hedge’s g , with positive values indicating an advantage for narrative), then conducted a three-level random-effects meta-analysis of these effects. All analyses were done in R (version 3.5.1; R Core Team, 2018), based on a script provided by Dodell-Feder and Tamir ( 2018 ), with the help of the metafor package (Viechtbauer, 2010 ).

Three-level meta-analysis

Because most articles contained multiple comparisons (and therefore multiple effect-sizes), in addition to multiple studies per article in some cases, it is necessary to model the nested nature of these data. It is likely that effect-sizes drawn from the same study are intercorrelated, and this dependency must be taken into account. To incorporate multiple dependent effect-sizes, we used a three-level random-effects meta-analysis model, accounting for variance among the effect-sizes (level 1), variance in effect-sizes within a single study (level 2), and the variance between different studies (level 3). This three-level model mirrors the hierarchical structure of our data, clustering effect-sizes nested within a study. Importantly, the sampling error within clusters is dependent, due to the overlap in samples (e.g., comparisons between genres for both recall and comprehension, within a single study). To account for this dependency we calculated cluster-robust standard errors, statistical tests, and confidence intervals (CIs) for our estimates from the three-level model.

A high degree of variability among effect-sizes can tell us whether study characteristics influence the effects observed. This heterogeneity among effect-sizes can be quantified and assessed using the Q statistic. A statistically significant Q value tells us that effect-sizes differ from each other more than what is expected based on sampling error alone. As a result, we can conclude that differences in effect-size may be due to some aspect of the studies. The main shortcoming of the Q statistic is that it does evaluate the extent of heterogeneity observed, assessing only its presence or absence (Huedo-Medina, Sánchez-Meca, Marín-Martínez, & Botella, 2006 ). To address this shortcoming, we use τ 2 to quantify the heterogeneity for level 2 (within studies) and level 3 (between studies) of our meta-analysis (Cheung, 2014 ). Large τ 2 values indicate that a large amount of variance in effect-sizes is not due to chance and might be caused by other factors that should be investigated, using a moderator analysis for example. On the other hand, small τ 2 values indicate that the effect-sizes are similar to one another, with differences between them likely due to chance. We estimated τ 2 by using restricted maximum-likelihood estimation (REML), the default in the metafor package (Viechtbauer, 2010 ). Note that τ 2 depends on the effect-size used, so unstandardized τ 2 values are not comparable across meta-analyses (Huedo-Medina et al., 2006 ). Fortunately, Higgins and Thompson ( 2002 ) proposed the I 2 index to overcome these shortcomings. The I 2 index can be interpreted as the percentage of total variability that is due to true heterogeneity rather than sampling error. We report total I 2 , with I 2 Level 2 and I 2 Level 3 representing within- and between-study heterogeneity, respectively. Large I 2 values indicate that a large proportion of the variance in effect-sizes is likely caused by systematic differences in study-level factors. This indicates that a moderator analysis may help to explain study-level variability. Low I 2 values indicate that the variability in effect-sizes is small and likely due to chance. We interpret the I 2 values by using the benchmarks provided by Higgins and Thompson ( 2002 ).

Sensitivity analyses

To examine whether our results are robust, and do not change based on small differences in what effect-sizes or studies are included, we conducted a series of sensitivity analyses. Effect-sizes that deviate markedly from others are potential outliers, with those that meaningfully impact coefficients known as influential outliers . These cases can distort results and lead to false conclusions. We defined influential outliers as effect-sizes with a standardized residual exceeding 3.0 that also have values for Cook’s distance exceeding .027, the latter based on the formula 4/( n - k -1), where k = number of predictors (Fox, 1991 ; as cited in Dodell-Feder & Tamir, 2018 ). If influential outliers exist, we planned to re-estimate our model after excluding them. To further examine the impact of each effect-size and study, we also conducted another sensitivity analysis: the leave-one-out procedure. This involves re-running the model multiple times, leaving out a different effect-size each time. A similar analysis was conducted leaving out one study each time. In this fashion, effect-sizes or studies whose inclusion dramatically influences the results can be identified.

Moderator analysis

If we find substantial variance among effect-sizes based on the Q statistic and I 2 values, we can then ask whether this variability can be explained by systematic differences between studies. Observed heterogeneity in effect-sizes was formally investigated via moderator analyses, incorporating study characteristics that vary both within studies (e.g., outcome measures) and between studies (e.g., adults or non-adult participants). One study characteristic–type of outcome measure – can vary both within and between studies. To be more specific, six studies measured both recall and comprehension, whereas other studies only measured one of these outcomes. To investigate any possible confound introduced by differences between studies, we also conducted follow-up analyses using only those studies that measured both recall and comprehension to re-estimate the model.

Publication bias

Lastly, we examined the possibility of publication bias: that studies identifying a difference or effect are more likely to be published, skewing our results. To diagnose publication bias, we produced a funnel plot depicting the relation between effect-sizes and their standard errors, with the latter representing the precision of the effect-size estimates. More precise results should be at the top of the plot and cluster tightly around the true effect (i.e., the vertical line on the plot), whereas less precise studies should be at the bottom and scatter widely around the mean, forming a funnel shape. A lack of symmetry in the plot indicates that publication bias may exist (e.g., few studies on the left side), possibly inflating the estimated overall effect-size. Studies with statistically significant findings should be located on the right side, with an over-representation of studies at the right bottom indicating evidence for publication bias. This pattern represents the presence of statistically significant, but low-powered, findings with equally likely statistically nonsignificant findings not being published. Although funnel plots are informative, they do not account for the multilevel structure of our data, which can also lead to clustered portions on the plot and therefore produce asymmetry that could be misinterpreted as bias. For this reason, we also conducted an Egger's regression test by including the standardized error of the effect-sizes as a moderator in the three-level models. In other words, we evaluated whether the precision of the effect was related to the effect-size magnitude. If standardized error coefficients predict effect-size, this indicates that there is a systematic difference between effect-sizes from studies with low versus high precision, indicating the presence of publication bias. The code to replicate our analyses and reproduce our figures can be accessed here: https://osf.io/jx78v/ .

Meta-analysis

Our primary research question was whether memory and comprehension differ for narrative versus expository texts. Our three-level random-effects meta-analysis of 150 effect-sizes found that, on average, memory and comprehension of narrative texts was superior to that for expository texts. The mean effect-size was a Hedge’s g of .55, with a 95% CI ranging from .31 to .79, p < .001 (Table 3 ). Thus, the average size of this effect was estimated to be just more than half a standard deviation in magnitude. Forest plots summarizing all effects are presented for our two main sample groups, adults (17 or more years of age) and non-adults (≦ 16 years) (Figs. 2 and 3 ).

Forest plot for adult participants

Forest plot for nonadult participants

With respect to variability in these effect-sizes, the Q statistic was statistically significant, indicating the presence of heterogeneity, Q (149) = 2884.68, p < .001. The Total I 2 was 98%, indicating a large proportion of true heterogeneity rather than sampling error, the majority of which came from between-study variance ( I 2 level 3 = 67%), with within-study variance being relatively low, I 2 level 2 = 31%. Because these differences among effect-sizes are largely caused by factors that vary between studies, we examined possible moderators, after first establishing the robustness of our main finding with a series of sensitivity analyses.

To ensure that our results are reliable and do not change as a function of small changes in what effect-sizes or studies are included, we conducted a series of sensitivity analyses. First, we examined whether there were any influential cases among our effect-sizes, but this process did not identify any influential outliers (based on the criteria described in our methods). Next, we performed a leave-one-out analysis at the level of individual effect-sizes. The meta-analysis was re-run multiple times, each time removing one effect-size, but the estimate of the overall effect barely changed ( g range = .54–.57). This analysis also found that the true variance of effect sizes remained substantial, lowest I 2 = 97% ( I 2 Level 2 = 35%, I 2 Level 3 = 63%); highest I 2 = 98% ( I 2 Level 2 = 30%, I 2 Level 3 = 68%). Likewise, the leave-one-out analysis at the study-level also illustrated that the effect was robust and not driven by any one particular study ( g range = .48–.59). The overall effect remained medium in size and statistically significant. In addition, the true variance of effect-sizes also remained substantial, lowest I 2 = 96% ( I 2 Level 2 = 30%, I 2 Level 3 = 66%); highest I 2 = 98% ( I 2 Level 2 = 30%, I 2 Level 3 = 68%). These sensitivity analyses demonstrate that these results are not driven by one effect-size or one study.

To investigate the potential causes of heterogeneity between studies, we examined several study characteristics as potential moderators (Table 1 ). Independent-samples t -tests were conducted to compare effect-sizes between conditions for each moderator. The effect was larger for memory than comprehension ( G diff = .24), and when tests were administered verbally rather than in a written format ( G diff = .43). However, both moderators fell just above the traditional threshold for statistical significance (Table 3 ). Non-adults also exhibited a larger benefit from narrative texts compared to adults ( G diff = .23), but this difference was also not statistically significant. Little difference was observed for listening relative to reading ( G diff = .07), when researchers reported an attempt to control the difficulty ( G diff = .03) or content across the genres ( G diff = .02), or for the timing of the test (immediately or after a delay; G diff = .03). Note that some of these differences are non-trivial in magnitude, and therefore failure to attain statistical significance may be a function of small sample sizes and/or large amounts of variability. In addition, the Q statistic was calculated for each moderator, which represents the residual heterogeneity in effect-sizes when the moderator was taken into account. In all cases, heterogeneity remained after considering the moderator (Table 3 ).

Because most of these studies measure either memory or comprehension, this introduces a potential confound into our moderator analysis for type of test. To control for this, we conducted a follow-up analysis re-estimating the model using only those six studies that measure both memory and comprehension, effectively controlling for other differences between studies that examine only one or the other. However, results remained the same with the difference between memory and comprehension failing to attain statistical significance ( p = .31).

To diagnose potential publication bias, we produced a funnel plot (Fig. 4 ), with the lighter region indicating the pseudo 95% confidence limits (± 1.96 × SE ). When publication bias and heterogeneity are absent, 95% of the effect-sizes should fall within this region and be distributed roughly symmetrically on either side of the average estimate. If publication bias is present, we would expect to see an asymmetry, whereby low precision studies contribute to larger effects, producing more points in the bottom right quadrant, with few matching points in the bottom left quadrant (small effects for low precision studies). In our funnel plot, there is some small evidence of publication bias, with 3 points found in the bottom-right quadrant, but no accompanying points in the bottom-left. In addition, the three largest effect-sizes (values greater than 3, for the standardized mean difference in favour of narrative) are not accompanied by points of equivalent magnitude in the other direction (in favour of expository texts) at the same level of precision.

Funnel plot

To further investigate the possibility of publication bias, we conducted an Egger’s regression test, to examine if the standard error of the effect-sizes acts as a moderator of the effect-sizes. Indeed, higher standard errors did predict larger effect-sizes, b = 2.68 (95% CI: .57, 4.80), SE = 1.04, p = .01. In other words, studies with lower precision do tend to find larger effects; in the absence of publication bias, standard error should not be related to the size of an effect. This result is therefore evidence of publication bias within our sample of studies, with studies reporting an advantage for narrative over expository texts when it comes to memory and comprehension perhaps being more likely to be published than null results or the inverse.

Our meta-analysis of 150 effect-sizes (from over 75 unique samples and more than 33,000 participants) found that people had an easier time comprehending and recalling narrative texts compared to expository ones. The average magnitude of this effect was more than a half a standard deviation, with a 95% CI ranging from just more than one-quarter to slightly more than three-quarters of a standard deviation. Moreover, this result appears to be robust, and not driven by any one particular effect-size or study. There was a great deal of variability in these effects, however, almost all of which represents true heterogeneity and not random sampling error. This variability originated primarily from differences between studies. Despite this fact, none of our tests for moderation were statistically significant. This may, however, have been a function of low statistical power. For many of our potential moderators, the difference in effect-sizes for the two groups in question appear to be non-trivial. As an example, the advantage afforded by narrative texts to memory (compared to comprehension) was equivalent to almost one-quarter of a standard deviation ( g = .24). It is likely a combination of both low sample sizes and large amounts of variability that result in these differences being statistically nonsignificant. The largest difference observed for a moderator was the advantage for verbal testing compared to a written format. This particular finding should be interpreted cautiously, however, as only 21 effect-sizes were based on a verbal test (from six studies), and the CIs around these estimates remain large.

This meta-analysis also provides important guidance for interpreting past studies and guiding future research. For example, there appears to be little evidence that controlling for the difficulty or content across texts has an impact on the effect-size for comprehension and memory. Past work that failed to enact these controls, therefore, may perhaps be viewed in a kinder light based on our results. That said, it cannot be ignored that only a minority of our effect-sizes came from studies in which content was controlled (28%), and more studies with this type of control would be appreciated. In addition, there are clearly topics that are currently under-researched. We located only four studies that examined comprehension or memory after a delay, and only six studies that employed a verbal test of memory or understanding. Both of these areas would benefit from greater attention. Lastly, only eight studies had participants listen to audio versions of the texts, and those that did tended to find a strong advantage for the narrative format. This might also be a good direction for future research.

In general, our confidence in these results is heightened by their convergence with a recent meta-analysis of genre differences for inferential comprehension by Virginia Clinton and her colleagues (Clinton et al., 2020 ). Their estimated advantage in inferencing for narrative texts is rather similar in magnitude ( G = .36; 95% CI: .07, .66; based on 38 effect-sizes) to what we observed for our studies of comprehension, more broadly defined ( G = .48; 95% CI: .21, .75). Similar to our own results, these researchers also did not find evidence of moderation based on age or whether the texts were matched in difficulty. This concordance between the comprehension aspect of our meta-analysis and their work on textual inferences is highly encouraging, especially as it emerged despite different sampling criteria, different meta-analytic methods, and a complete independence of efforts.

Our meta-analysis also uncovered some evidence of publication bias, with asymmetry observed in our funnel plot and the precision of effect-sizes positively predicting effect-size magnitude. That said, gathering and interpreting evidence of publication bias is a difficult undertaking, even more so when there is substantial between-study variability in effect-sizes (Lau, Ioannidis, Terrin, Schmid, & Olkin, 2006 ). Heterogeneity among effect-sizes can contribute to a statistically significant Egger’s regression test, and an asymmetrical funnel plot, and so these methods may not be appropriate under the conditions observed for our meta-analysis (Terrin, Schmid, Lau, & Olkin, 2003 ). To explore this evidence for publication bias a bit further, we repeated the Egger’s test on the two sub-samples most likely to contribute to this heterogeneity, separating effect-sizes pertaining to memory from those for comprehension. Based on this test, there was no evidence for publication bias for tests of comprehension ( b = 1.62; 95% CI: -1.56, 4.81; SE = 1.55, p = .30), but the same could not be said for memory, b = 2.91; 95% CI: .53, 5.29; SE = 1.09, p = .02. It thus appears that evidence for publication bias originates primarily from investigations of memory. This is also consistent with the prior meta-analysis for inferential comprehension, which found no evidence of publication bias (Clinton et al., 2020 ). Whether stories are better recalled than essays would therefore appear to warrant further investigation. If additional unpublished research on this topic emerges, it can easily be added to our public data and these analyses re-run based on our posted code.

One limitation of our meta-analysis is that we took a quite broad and inclusive approach. Both comprehension and memory were broadly defined, and were combined in our primary analysis. To be clear, we acknowledge that memory and comprehension are two distinct and unique processes, although they are related. These were combined in our central analysis as they are closely associated in this context, and the theoretical predictions for both were the same. Moreover, we did not find evidence for moderation based on whether memory or comprehension was tested, although the advantage for narrative was stronger for memory. That said, it would not be at all surprising if some readers disagreed with our decision to combine these studies of memory and comprehension. However, we provide estimates for memory and comprehension separately, in reporting our moderation analyses (Table 3 ). In addition, a real strength of our meta-analysis is that all our data and analysis script are publicly available for download. This means that researchers who disagree with any of our inclusions, categorizations, and groupings can easily make their own decisions and re-run the analysis. Similarly, adding new studies and re-estimating the average effect-size will be a simple process in the future.

In closing, the totality of the evidence available finds that people have an easier time comprehending and recalling information presented in a story compared to that presented in an essay. This has potential implications for a number of disciplines, not least of which is the realm of education. Because texts are an important way in which we encounter new information (Stanovich & Cunningham, 1993 ), successfully comprehending and retaining this information to build our knowledge of the world is immensely important. To that end, the advantage afforded to narratives over exposition in this domain should be considered whenever possible. We must emphasize, however, that these results should not be interpreted as a suggestion to force all information into a narrative form for pedagogical purposes, especially when such information is not typically presented in this way. Future research is needed to identify the boundary conditions of this narrative advantage, as well as to identify which aspects of a narrative presentation are most important (e.g., prior knowledge, coherence, text schemas, familiarity). It is quite possible that mixed genres like narrative journalism, for example, could hold the key for leveraging the advantages of narrative–its ability to capture interest and communicate experience through imagination – to meet the goals of exposition to inform and educate (van Krieken & Sanders, in press ).

* indicates articles included in our meta-analysis.

Armbruster, B. B., & Nagy, W. E. (1992). Vocabulary in content area lessons. The Reading Teacher , 45 (7), 550−551.

Google Scholar  

Baker, L., & Stein, N. L. (1978). The development of prose comprehension skills. Center for the Study of Reading Technical Report ; no. 102.

Barton, M. L. (1997). Addressing the literacy crisis: Teaching reading in the content areas. NASSP Bulletin , 81 (587), 22−30.

Article   Google Scholar  

Berman, R. A. & Nir-Sagiv, B. (2007). Comparing narrative and expository text construction across adolescence: A developmental paradox. Discourse Processes , 43 (2), 79−120.

*Best, R. M., Floyd, R. G., & McNamara, D. S. (2008). Differential competencies contributing to children's comprehension of narrative and expository texts. Reading Psychology , 29 (2), 137−164.

Bietti, L. M., Tilston, O., & Bangerter, A. (2019). Storytelling as adaptive collective sensemaking. Topics in cognitive science, 11 (4), 710-732.

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Boscolo, P. (1990). The construction of expository text. First Language , 10 (30), 217−230.

Boyd, B. (2009). On the Origins of Stories: Evolution, cognition and fiction . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Book   Google Scholar  

Brosch, T., Pourtois, G., & Sander, D. (2010). The perception and categorisation of emotional stimuli: A review. Cognition & Emotion , 24 (3), 377−400.

Bruner, J. (1986). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Cahill, L., Babinsky, R., Markowitsch, H., & McGaugh, J. (1995). The amygdala and emotional memory. Nature, 377 (6547), 295–296.

Campbell, D. T. & Stanley, J. C. (1963). Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research . Chicago: Rand McNally & Co.

*Carnine, D. & Kinder, D. (1985). Teaching low-performing students to apply generative and schema strategies to narrative and expository material. Remedial and Special Education , 6 (1), 20−30.

Carstensen, L. L., & Turk-Charles, S. (1994). The salience of emotion across the adult life span. Psychology and aging, 9 (2), 259-264.

Cheung, M. W. -L. (2014). Modeling dependent effect sizes with three-level meta-analyses: A structure equation modeling approach. Psychological Methods. 19(2), 211−229.

Clinton, V., Taylor, T., Bajpayee, S., Davison, M. L., Carlson, S. E., & Seipel, B. (2020). Inferential comprehension differences between narrative and expository texts: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Reading and Writing , 33 , 2223–2248.

Collins, A. & Gentner, D. (1980). A framework for a cognitive theory of writing. In L. W. Gregg & E. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Cognitive Processes in Writing (pp. 51−72). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.

Coté, N., Goldman, S. R., & Saul, E. U. (1998). Students making sense of informational text: Relations between processing and representation. Discourse Processes , 25 (1), 1−53.

*Cunningham, L. J. & Gall, M. D. (1990). The effects of expository and narrative prose on student achievement and attitudes toward textbooks. The Journal of Experimental Education , 58 (3), 165−175.

*Dai, D. Y. & Wang, X. (2007). The role of need for cognition and reader beliefs in text comprehension and interest development. Contemporary Educational Psychology , 32 (3), 332−347.

Dal Martello, M. F. (1984). The effect of illustrative details on the recall of main points in simple fictional and factual passages. Discourse Processes , 7 (4), 483-492.

De Beaugrande, R., & Colby, B. N. (1979). Narrative models of action and interaction. Cognitive Science , 3 (1), 43-66.

*De Beni, R., Palladino, P., Borella, E., & Presti, S. L. (2003). Reading comprehension and aging: Does an age-related difference necessarily mean impairment?. Aging, Clinical, and Experimental Research , 15 (1), 67−76.

Decker, R. E. (1974). Patterns of Essay IV. Boston: Little, Brown & Company.

*Diakidoy, I. A. N. (2014). The effects of familiarization with oral expository text on listening and reading comprehension levels. Reading Psychology , 35 (7), 622−643.

*Diakidoy, I. A. N., Stylianou, P., Karefillidou, C., & Papageorgiou, P. (2005). The relationship between listening and reading comprehension of different types of text at increasing grade levels. Reading Psychology , 26 (1), 55−80.

*Dickens, R. H. & Meisinger, E. B. (2017). Examining the effects of reading modality and passage genre on reading comprehension in middle school students. Reading Psychology , 38 (3), 321−347.

Dochy, F., Segers, M., & Buehl, M. M. (1999). The relation between assessment practices and outcomes of studies: The case of research on prior knowledge. Review of Educational Research , 69 , 145−186.

Dodell-Feder, D., & Tamir, D. I. (2018). Fiction reading has a small positive impact on social cognition: A meta-analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147 (11), 1713-1727.

Fox, J. (1991). Regression Diagnostics . Newbury Park, California: Sage.

Gardner, D. (2004). Vocabulary input through extensive reading: A comparison of words found in children's narrative and expository reading materials. Applied Linguistics , 25 (1), 1−37.

Gernsbacher, M. A., Goldsmith, H. H., Robertson, R. R. W. (1992). Do readers mentally represent characters’ emotional states? Cognition & Emotion , 6 (2), 89–111.

Grabe, W. (2002). Narrative and expository macro-genres. In A. M. Johns (Ed.), Genre in the Classroom: Multiple perspectives (p. 249–267). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Graesser, A. C. & Clark, L. F. (1985). The generation of knowledge-based inferences during narrative comprehension. Advances in Psychology , 29 , 53–94

Graesser, A. C. & Goodman, S.M. (1985). Implicit knowledge, question answering, and the representation of expository text. In B. Britton & J. B. Black (eds.) Understanding Expository Text (109–171). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Graesser, A. C. & Ottati, V. (1995). Why stories? Some evidence, questions, and challenges. In R. S. Wyer, Jr. (Ed.), Advances in social cognition, Vol. 8. Knowledge and memory: The real story (pp. 121–132). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Graesser, A. C., McNamara, D. S., & Louwerse, M. M. (2003). What do readers need to learn in order to process coherence relations in narrative and expository text. In A. P. Sweet and C. E. Snow (eds.), Rethinking Reading Comprehension (pp. 82–98). New York: Guilford Publications.

Graesser, A. C., Singer, M., & Trabasso, T. (1994). Constructing inferences during narrative text comprehension. Psychological Review , 101 (3), 371–395.

Graesser, A., Golding, J. M., & Long, D. L. (1991). Narrative representation and comprehension. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (eds.), Handbook of Reading Research, Vol. 2 (pp. 171–205). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Guan, C. Q., Ye, F., Wagner, R. K., Meng, W., & Leong, C. K. (2014). Text comprehension mediates morphological awareness, syntactic processing, and working memory in predicting Chinese written composition performance. Journal of Educational psychology, 106(3), 779–798.

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Hall, K. M., Sabey, B. L., & McClellan, M. (2005). Expository text comprehension: Helping primary-grade teachers use expository texts to full advantage. Reading Psychology , 26 (3), 211–234.

Hamann, S. (2001). Cognitive and neural mechanisms of emotional memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 5 , 394–400.

*Harris, J. L., Rogers, W. A., & Qualls, C. D. (1998). Written language comprehension in younger and older adults. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research , 41 (3), 603–617.

*Hay, E. & Moran, C. (2005). Discourse formulation in children with closed head injury. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology , 14 (4), 324–336.

Higgins, J. P. T., & Thompson, S. G. (2002). Quantifying heterogeneity in a meta-analysis. Statistics in Medicine , 21 , 1539–1558.

*Hinze, S. R. (2015). Divergent Memory and Metacognitive Effects of Expository and Narrative Texts . Unpublished data.

Hogan, P.C. (2003). The mind and its stories . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Huedo-Medina, T. B., Sánchez-Meca, J., Marín-Martínez, F., & Botella, J. (2006). Assessing heterogeneity in meta-analysis: Q statistic or I 2 index?. Psychological methods, 11 (2), 193-206.

Kazui, H., Mori, E., Hashimoto, M., Hirono, N., Imamura, T., Tanimukai, S., Hanihara, T., & Cahill, L. (2000). Impact of emotion on memory: controlled study of the influence of emotionally charged material on declarative memory in Alzheimer’s disease. British Journal of Psychiatry , 177 , 343–347.

Kent, C. E. (1984). A linguist compares narrative and expository prose. Journal of Reading , 28 (3), 232–236.

Kintsch, W. & Young, S. R. (1984). Selective recall of decision-relevant information from texts. Memory & Cognition , 12 (2), 112–117.

Kintsch, W. (1982). Text representation. In W. Otto & S. White (eds.), Reading Expository Material (pp. 87–101). New York, New York: Academic Press.

Laszlo, J. & Cupchik, G. C. (1995). The role of affective processes in reading time and time experience during literary reception. Empirical Studies of the Arts , 13 (1), 25–37.

Larsen, S. F. & Seilman, U. (1988). Personal remindings while reading literature. Text: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse , 8 (4), 411–430.

Lau, J., Ioannidis, J. P. A., Terrin, N., Schmid, C. H., & Olkin, I. (2006). The case of the misleading funnel plot. British Medical Journal , 333 , 597–600.

*Lehto, J. E. & Anttila, M. (2003). Listening comprehension in primary level grades two, four and six. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research , 47 (2), 133–143.

Leslie, L. & Caldwell, J. S. (2017). Qualitative Reading Inventory . New York: Harper Collins.

Levine, L. J. & Edelstein, R. S. (2009). Emotion and memory narrowing: A review and goal relevance approach. Cognition & Emotion , 23 (5), 833–875.

*Luszcz, M. A. (1993a). Orienting tasks as moderators of narrative and expository text recall in adulthood. Psychology and Aging , 8 (1), 56–58.

*Luszcz, M. A. (1993b). When knowing is not enough: The role of memory beliefs in prose recall of older and younger adults. Australian Psychologist , 28 (1), 16–20.

Mar, R. A., & Oatley, K. (2008). The function of fiction is the abstraction and simulation of social experience. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3 (3), 173-192.

Mar, R. A., Oatley, K., Djikic, M., & Mullin, J. (2011). Emotion and narrative fiction: Interactive influences before, during, and after reading. Cognition & Emotion, 25 (5), 818–833.

*Margolin, S. J. & Hover, P. A. (2011). Metacomprehension and negation: Assessing readers’ awareness of the difficulty of negated text. Reading Psychology , 32 (2), 158–171.

*Margolin, S. J., Driscoll, C., Toland, M. J., & Kegler, J. L. (2013). E-readers, computer screens, or paper: Does reading comprehension change across media platforms?. Applied Cognitive Psychology , 27 (4), 512–519.

*Margolin, S. J., Snyder, N., & Thamboo, P. (2018). How Should I Use My E-Reader? An exploration of the circumstances under which electronic presentation of text results in good comprehension. Mind, Brain, and Education , 12 (1), 39–48.

McGaugh, J. L. (2000). Memory—a century of consolidation. Science , 287 (5451), 248–251.

McKeown, M. G., Beck, I. L., Sinatra, G. M., & Loxterman, J. A. (1992). The contribution of prior knowledge and coherent text to comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly , 27 (1), 78–93.

McNamara, D. S. (2004). SERT: Self-explanation reading training. Discourse Processes , 38 (1), 1–30.

McNamara, D. S., Kintsch, E., Songer, N. B., & Kintsch, W. (1996). Are good texts always better? Interactions of text coherence, background knowledge, and levels of understanding in learning from text. Cognition and Instruction , 14 (1), 1–43.

McNamara, D. S., Ozuru, Y., & Floyd, R. G. (2017). Comprehension challenges in the fourth grade: The roles of text cohesion, text genre, and readers’ prior knowledge. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education , 4 (1), 229–257.

Medina, A. L. & Pilonieta, P. (2006). Once upon a Time: Comprehending Narrative Text. In J. S. Schumm (Ed.), Reading Assessment and Instruction for All Learners (pp. 222-261). New York: Guilford Press.

Meyer, B. (1985). Prose Analysis: Purposes, Procedures, and Problems. In B. K. Britton and J. B. Black (eds.), Understanding Expository Text: A Theoretical and Practical Handbook for Analyzing Explanatory Text (pp. 11–64). Oxfordshire: Routledge.

*Moè, A. & De Beni, R. (2005). Stressing the efficacy of the Loci method: Oral presentation and the subject-generation of the Loci pathway with expository passages. Applied Cognitive Psychology , 19 (1), 95–106.

Mosenthal, P. B. (1985). Defining the expository discourse continuum: Towards a taxonomy of expository text types. Poetics , 14 (5), 387–414.

*Mulholland, H. & Neville, M. (1989). Reading and listening at three school stages: cloze tests and their response analysis. Journal of Research in Reading , 12 (1), 29–48.

*Narvaez, D., Van Den Broek, P., & Ruiz, A. B. (1999). The influence of reading purpose on inference generation and comprehension in reading. Journal of Educational Psychology , 91 (3), 488–496.

Oatley, K. (1991). Best Laid Plans: The psychology of emotions . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oatley, K. (1999). Why fiction may be twice as true as fact: Fiction as cognitive and emotional simulation. Review of General Psychology , 3 (2), 101–117.

Oatley, K. & Duncan, E. (1992). Incidents of emotion in daily life. In K. T. Strongman (Ed.), International Review of Studies on Emotion, Vol. 2 (pp. 249–293). John Wiley & Sons.

*Olson, M. W. (1985). Text type and reader ability: The effects on paraphrase and text-based inference questions. Journal of Reading Behavior , 17 (3), 199–214.

*Padeliadu, S. & Antoniou, F. (2014). The relationship between reading comprehension, decoding, and fluency in Greek: A cross-sectional study. Reading & Writing Quarterly , 30 (1), 1–31.

*Panico, J. & Healey, E. C. (2009). Influence of text type, topic familiarity, and stuttering frequency on listener recall, comprehension, and mental effort. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research , 52 , 534–546.

*Pomplun, M. & Omar, M. H. (2001). The factorial invariance of a test of reading comprehension across groups of limited English proficient students. Applied Measurement in Education , 14 (3), 261–283.

*Primor, L., Pierce, M. E., & Katzir, T. (2011). Predicting reading comprehension of narrative and expository texts among Hebrew-speaking readers with and without a reading disability. Annals of Dyslexia , 61 (2), 242–268.

Roller, C. M. & Schreiner, R. (1985). The effects of narrative and expository organizational instruction on sixth-grade children's comprehension of expository and narrative prose. Reading Psychology: An International Quarterly , 6 (1–2), 27–42.

Rubin, D. C. (1995). Stories about stories. In R. S. Wyer, Jr. (Ed.), Advances in Social Cognition, Vol. 8. Knowledge and memory: The real story (p. 153–164). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

*Rudiger, D. E. & Hinze, S. R. (2017). Seductive Stories: Effects of narrative context on metacomprehension, interest, and learning from science texts . Unpublished data.

Saadatnia, M., Ketabi, S., & Tavakoli, M. (2017). Levels of reading comprehension across text types: A comparison of literal and inferential comprehension of expository and narrative texts in Iranian EFL learners. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research , 46 (5), 1087–1099.

*Sadoski, M., Goetz, E. T., & Rodriguez, M. (2000). Engaging texts: Effects of concreteness on comprehensibility, interest, and recall in four text types. Journal of Educational Psychology , 92 (1), 85–95.

Scalise Sugiyama, M. S. (2001). Food, foragers, and folklore: The role of narrative in human subsistence. Evolution and Human Behavior, 22 (4), 221-240.

Schank, R. & Abelson, R. P. (1995). Knowledge and memory: The real story, Advances in Social Cognition, Volume VIII . Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

*Schroeder, S. (2011). What readers have and do: Effects of students' verbal ability and reading time components on comprehension with and without text availability. Journal of Educational Psychology , 103 (4), 877–896.

Shapiro, A. M. (2004). How including prior knowledge as a subject variable may change outcomes of learning research. American Educational Research Journal , 41 (1), 159–189.

*Simmons, D., Fogarty, M., Oslund, E. L., Simmons, L., Hairrell, A., Davis, J., ... & Stillman, S. (2014). Integrating content knowledge-building and student-regulated comprehension practices in secondary English language arts classes. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness , 7 (4), 309–330.

Spiro, R. J. & Taylor, B. M. (1987). On investigating children's transition from narrative to expository discourse: The multidimensional nature of psychological text classification. Understanding Readers' Understanding: Theory and practice , 77–93.

Stanovich, K. E. & Cunningham, A. E. (1993). Where does knowledge come from? Specific associations between print exposure and information acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology , 85 (2), 211−229.

Terrin, N., Schmid, C. H., Lau, J., & Olkin, I. (2003). Adjusting for publication bias in the presence of heterogeneity. Statistics in Medicine , 22 (13), 2113−2126.

Thorndyke, P. W. (1977). Cognitive structures in comprehension and memory of narrative discourse. Cognitive Psychology , 9 (1), 77−110.

Trabasso, T. & Magliano, J. P. (1996). Conscious understanding during comprehension. Discourse Processes , 21 (3), 255−287.

*Tun, P. A. (1989). Age differences in processing expository and narrative text. Journal of Gerontology , 44 (1), 9−15.

*Valencia, S. W. & Stallman, A. C. (1989). Multiple measures of prior knowledge: Comparative predictive validity. National Reading Conference Yearbook, 38, 427–436.

van Krieken, K., & Sanders, J. (in press). What is narrative journalism? A systematic review and an empirical agenda. Journalism .

Viechtbauer, W. (2010). Conducting meta-analyses in R with the metafor package. Journal of Statistical Software , 36 (3), 1–48.

*Waddill, P. J., McDaniel, M. A., & Einstein, G. O. (1988). Illustrations as adjuncts to prose: A text-appropriate processing approach. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80 (4), 457–464.

*Weaver, C. A. & Bryant, D. S. (1995). Monitoring of comprehension: The role of text difficulty in metamemory for narrative and expository text. Memory & Cognition , 23 (1), 12–22.

Weaver, C. A. & Kintsch, W. (1991). Expository Text. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of Reading Research (Vol. 2, pp. 230–245). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Winograd, E. & Neisser, U. (Eds.) (1992). Affect and Accuracy in Recall: Studies of “flashbulb” memories . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

*Wightman, S. K. & Roney, R. C. (2013). The effects of story performance on fifth-grade students' comprehension of narrative texts. Storytelling, Self, Society , 9 (1), 20–52.

*Wolfe, M. B. (2005). Memory for narrative and expository text: independent influences of semantic associations and text organization. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, memory, and cognition , 31 (2), 359–364.

*Wolfe, M. B. & Mienko, J. A. (2007). Learning and memory of factual content from narrative and expository text. British Journal of Educational Psychology , 77 (3), 541–564.

Wolfe, M. B. & Woodwyk, J. M. (2010). Processing and memory of information presented in narrative or expository texts. British Journal of Educational Psychology , 80 (3), 341–362.

Zabrucky, D. & Moore, K. M. (1999). Influence of text genre on adults' monitoring of understanding and recall. Educational Gerontology , 25 (8), 691–710.

Zabrucky, K. & Ratner, H. H. (1992). Effects of passage type on comprehension monitoring and recall in good and poor readers. Journal of Reading Behavior , 24 (3), 373–391.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Psychology, York University, 4700 Keele St. W., Toronto, ON, M3J1P3, Canada

Raymond A. Mar, Jingyuan Li, Anh T. P. Nguyen & Cindy P. Ta

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raymond A. Mar .

Additional information

Open Practices Statement

All data and codes have been made available on the Open Science Framework:  https://osf.io/jx78v/ .

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Mar, R.A., Li, J., Nguyen, A.T.P. et al. Memory and comprehension of narrative versus expository texts: A meta-analysis. Psychon Bull Rev 28 , 732–749 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-020-01853-1

Download citation

Accepted : 19 November 2020

Published : 06 January 2021

Issue Date : June 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-020-01853-1

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Narrative texts
• Expository texts
• Comprehension
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Debunking Myths: the Truth Behind Flight 93’s Tragic End

This essay about the fate of United Airlines Flight 93 contests the conspiracy theory that it was shot down by the U.S. military on September 11, 2001. It examines key points such as the widespread debris from the crash, the military’s orders on that day, and eyewitness accounts, concluding that the evidence supports the official narrative. The flight crashed due to the heroic efforts of passengers attempting to reclaim the aircraft from hijackers, not because of a military intervention. The essay emphasizes that conspiracy theories distract from the bravery of these individuals and the factual, investigated events of that tragic day, underscoring the importance of honoring their memory with the truth.

How it works

Within the heartbreaking mosaic of events that transpired on September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93’s narrative occupies a singular position in American memory. Unlike the other flights that were taken over that day, this one was not able to reach its anticipated destination of Washington, D.C. Rather, it went down in a Pennsylvanian field near Shanksville. The bravery of the passengers who tried to take back control of the plane from the hijackers is widely known and appreciated. However, surrounding this act of bravery are persistent rumors and conspiracy theories suggesting that Flight 93 was actually shot down by the U.

S. military in a desperate bid to prevent another targeted attack.

This theory hinges on a few key points of contention. Proponents argue that debris scattered over several miles indicates the plane was shot down, as such a spread would be inconsistent with a crash following an onboard struggle. Additionally, they point to the rapid response of the military that day and the existence of a shoot-down authorization given by then-Vice President Dick Cheney, which, they claim, suggests a military intervention took place.

First and foremost, it is crucial to understand the context of that fateful morning. The chaos and unprecedented nature of the attacks led to a fog of war scenario where communication and immediate facts were muddled. The order authorized by Cheney indeed allowed for a shoot-down if necessary, but this was a measure of last resort, and there is no evidence that it was executed on Flight 93.

The debris field spread, often cited as evidence of a shootdown, can actually be explained by the high-speed impact with which Flight 93 hit the ground. Experts and official reports confirm that the plane was traveling at about 580 miles per hour when it crashed. At such a high speed, the impact force would naturally scatter debris across a wide area, a fact consistent with other high-speed crashes. Moreover, the FBI’s extensive investigation found no evidence of an external explosion that would indicate a missile strike or a shootdown.

Eyewitness accounts from that day also support the conclusion that the passengers were fighting to regain control of the aircraft. Phone calls made from the plane provided real-time details of their brave attempt. The sudden changes in the flight path and the erratic maneuvers of the aircraft in its final moments are consistent with a struggle in the cockpit rather than an external military action.

Further dispelling the shootdown theory is the lack of physical evidence for such an event. Missile strikes leave distinct signatures on wreckage, none of which were found on the debris recovered from Flight 93. The National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) report outlines the aircraft’s destruction as consistent with a ground impact from a high-speed dive, which was corroborated by the cockpit voice recorder data.

The persistence of the shootdown theory can likely be attributed to the deep-seated need for answers and the complexity of accepting the random, chaotic elements of such a catastrophic day. Conspiracy theories provide a sense of control or alternative explanation that some find comforting in the face of such senseless tragedy. However, they also undermine the heroism of the passengers whose actions likely prevented further loss of life by ensuring that Flight 93 did not reach its intended target.

In conclusion, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the fact that Flight 93 was not shot down, but rather crashed as a result of the passengers’ courageous efforts to stop the hijackers. This act of heroism should be remembered and respected as a poignant reminder of the resilience and bravery that individuals can muster in the face of dire threats. While the allure of conspiracy theories might offer an alternative narrative, they distract from the factual events verified by extensive investigation and disrespect the memory of those who fought valiantly that day. It’s our responsibility to uphold the truth and honor their sacrifice.

Cite this page

Debunking Myths: The Truth Behind Flight 93's Tragic End. (2024, May 12). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/debunking-myths-the-truth-behind-flight-93s-tragic-end/

"Debunking Myths: The Truth Behind Flight 93's Tragic End." PapersOwl.com , 12 May 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/debunking-myths-the-truth-behind-flight-93s-tragic-end/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). Debunking Myths: The Truth Behind Flight 93's Tragic End . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/debunking-myths-the-truth-behind-flight-93s-tragic-end/ [Accessed: 15 May. 2024]

"Debunking Myths: The Truth Behind Flight 93's Tragic End." PapersOwl.com, May 12, 2024. Accessed May 15, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/debunking-myths-the-truth-behind-flight-93s-tragic-end/

"Debunking Myths: The Truth Behind Flight 93's Tragic End," PapersOwl.com , 12-May-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/debunking-myths-the-truth-behind-flight-93s-tragic-end/. [Accessed: 15-May-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). Debunking Myths: The Truth Behind Flight 93's Tragic End . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/debunking-myths-the-truth-behind-flight-93s-tragic-end/ [Accessed: 15-May-2024]

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.

Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Please check your inbox.

You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.

Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

• Yekaterinburg
• Novosibirsk
• Vladivostok

• Tours to Russia
• Practicalities
• Russia in Lists

Rusmania • Deep into Russia

Out of the Centre

Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

Plan your next trip to Russia

Ready-to-book tours.

Your holiday in Russia starts here. Choose and book your tour to Russia.

REQUEST A CUSTOMISED TRIP

Looking for something unique? Create the trip of your dreams with the help of our experts.

• Bahasa Indonesia
• Eastern Europe
• Moscow Oblast

Elektrostal

Elektrostal Localisation : Country Russia , Oblast Moscow Oblast . Available Information : Geographical coordinates , Population, Area, Altitude, Weather and Hotel . Nearby cities and villages : Noginsk , Pavlovsky Posad and Staraya Kupavna .

Information

Find all the information of Elektrostal or click on the section of your choice in the left menu.

• Update data

Elektrostal Demography

Information on the people and the population of Elektrostal.

Elektrostal Geography

Geographic Information regarding City of Elektrostal .

Elektrostal Distance

Distance (in kilometers) between Elektrostal and the biggest cities of Russia.

Elektrostal Map

Locate simply the city of Elektrostal through the card, map and satellite image of the city.

Elektrostal Nearby cities and villages

Elektrostal weather.

Weather forecast for the next coming days and current time of Elektrostal.

Elektrostal Sunrise and sunset

Find below the times of sunrise and sunset calculated 7 days to Elektrostal.

Elektrostal Hotel

Our team has selected for you a list of hotel in Elektrostal classified by value for money. Book your hotel room at the best price.

Elektrostal Nearby

Below is a list of activities and point of interest in Elektrostal and its surroundings.

Elektrostal Page

• Information /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#info
• Demography /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#demo
• Geography /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#geo
• Distance /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#dist1
• Map /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#map
• Nearby cities and villages /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#dist2
• Weather /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#weather
• Sunrise and sunset /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#sun
• Hotel /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#hotel
• Nearby /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#around
• Page /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#page
• Terms of Use
• Copyright © 2024 DB-City - All rights reserved
• Change Ad Consent Do not sell my data

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva)

<< Previous page

Pages:  379-406

In 1988, the Tuvan Archaeological Expedition (led by M. E. Kilunovskaya and V. A. Semenov) discovered a unique burial of the early Iron Age at Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva. There are two burial mounds of the Aldy-Bel culture dated by 7th century BC. Within the barrows, which adjoined one another, forming a figure-of-eight, there were discovered 7 burials, from which a representative collection of artifacts was recovered. Burial 5 was the most unique, it was found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, with a tightly closed lid. Due to the preservative properties of larch and lack of air access, the coffin contained a well-preserved mummy of a child with an accompanying set of grave goods. The interred individual retained the skin on his face and had a leather headdress painted with red pigment and a coat, sewn from jerboa fur. The coat was belted with a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles. Besides that, a leather quiver with arrows with the shafts decorated with painted ornaments, fully preserved battle pick and a bow were buried in the coffin. Unexpectedly, the full-genomic analysis, showed that the individual was female. This fact opens a new aspect in the study of the social history of the Scythian society and perhaps brings us back to the myth of the Amazons, discussed by Herodotus. Of course, this discovery is unique in its preservation for the Scythian culture of Tuva and requires careful study and conservation.

Keywords: Tuva, Early Iron Age, early Scythian period, Aldy-Bel culture, barrow, burial in the coffin, mummy, full genome sequencing, aDNA

Information about authors: Marina Kilunovskaya (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir Semenov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Varvara Busova  (Moscow, Russian Federation).  (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Kharis Mustafin  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Irina Alborova  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Biological Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Alina Matzvai  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected]

Shopping Cart Items: 0 Cart Total: 0,00 € place your order

Price pdf version

student - 2,75 € individual - 3,00 € institutional - 7,00 €

Copyright В© 1999-2022. Stratum Publishing House