Week 5 · Chapter

Chapter 5 — Narrative & Expository Writing

English Composition Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~35–45 minutes · Objective 4 (compose in multiple rhetorical modes — narration and exposition, rhetorical analysis, and argument — using the appeals (ethos, pathos, logos, kairos) to explain how a real text persuades and the structure of argument (claim, grounds, warrant, counterargument, rebuttal) to build your own, arguing from evidence and representing opposing views fairly), Objective 3 (develop an arguable, specific thesis and organize an essay around it — unified, coherent, well-developed paragraphs built from a point through evidence to explanation, with an introduction that lands the thesis, transitions that name real relationships, and a conclusion that synthesizes) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the tutorial, the quiz, the Writing Studio, and your first major essay all build on it.

In plain language

This week you write in two of the oldest ways people use words: telling a true story and explaining how something works. A narrative (a true story told to make a point) needs more than events; it needs a reason the reader should care. An expository piece (writing that explains or informs) needs steps in an order a reader can follow. In both, you learn to show (give the details of a moment that a reader can see and hear) instead of telling (naming the feeling for the reader). You will use these moves in your first major essay, written from your own experience with no outside sources.

Why you already care about this

Your driving test is at 9:15 on a gray morning. You wait 20 minutes in a plastic chair. Then the examiner asks you to parallel park between 2 orange cones. Afterward, two people ask you about it. Your best friend texts, "So how did it go??" Your younger cousin, whose test is next month, asks, "What should I do to get ready?"

You answer them in two different ways without thinking about it. For your friend you tell a story: the chair, the cones, the moment your back tire touched the curb, the examiner's pen scratching on the clipboard. For your cousin you explain: practice parking in an empty lot, adjust your mirrors before you start the engine, and ask for the route ahead of time. The story makes a point about a morning you lived through. The explanation gives a reader steps to follow.

Those two answers are the two modes this chapter teaches. You already use both every week. This chapter names the moves inside them, so you can make each one on purpose and fix it when a draft goes flat.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

tell narration from exposition, and both from argument;
name a story's significance and decide whether to state it or imply it;
turn a telling sentence into a showing one with concrete sensory detail;
choose concrete words over abstract ones where a reader needs to picture something;
decide which moment deserves a scene and which stretch needs only a narrative summary;
order a story chronologically and an explanation by process, with transitions that signal each move;
cut purple prose, including the purple prose a chatbot adds when it "improves" a story.

Carry this sentence with you: show the moment; let the reader feel it.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1 gave you the rhetorical situation and the writing process. Week 2 separated what a text says from what you think of it. Week 3 built the paragraph from a point through evidence to explanation. Week 4 gave you the thesis and the shape of a whole essay.
This week: two rhetorical modes, narration and exposition, and the craft moves that make each one work: significance, showing, concrete words, scene and summary, order, and cutting.
How they connect: a narrative's significance does the job a thesis did last week, and every paragraph of a story or an explanation still does one job, as your Week 3 paragraphs did.
Where we're going next: Week 6, Rhetorical Analysis, turns your attention from your own stories to how a real speech persuades its audience.

Week 4 is the chapter this one leans on hardest. Last week a thesis was the sentence that states your essay's main claim. A story does not usually open with a claim, but it still has to arrive somewhere. Week 3 matters too. A body paragraph made one point and backed it up. In a narrative, the "evidence" is the detail of a remembered moment, and it still has to serve the point.

1. Narration versus exposition: two jobs for one experience

Think back to the driving test. The same morning gave you a story for your friend and a set of steps for your cousin. The experience did not change. The job changed. Writers call each of these jobs a mode.

A rhetorical mode is a way of developing a piece of writing, named for the job the writing does. You will meet four modes in this course: telling a story, explaining, analyzing a text, and arguing a claim. This week covers the first two.

Narration tells a true story in order to make a point. The events are chosen and ordered so that the reader reaches the story's significance.
Exposition explains or informs, such as how a task is done or how something works, without arguing that the reader should take a side.

Argument is a third job, and it waits for Week 7. An argument claims that something should change or is true, and it asks the reader to agree. Exposition stops short of that. It wants the reader to understand.

Worked example — the camping-trip set. This week's shared example is one illustrative experience, a first camping trip, written for this course and attributed to no one. Here is the same rainy night in two modes.

The story version opens with a narrative summary of the drive and moves into the night itself: "Rain drummed on the car roof and ran off the brim of my cap, down the back of my neck. The tent poles kept slipping through my wet fingers, and the instruction sheet in my pocket had turned to gray pulp. My sister held the flashlight in her teeth and said nothing."

The expository version, in process order, reads: "First, practice pitching the tent once at home on a dry day. Next, at the campsite, choose the highest flat ground so that water drains away from you. Then lay out the ground sheet and the tent, and connect the poles. After that, clip the tent to the poles and stake each corner. Finally, stretch the rain fly over the top and stake it tight."

Run the job test on each one. The story makes a point through one remembered night. The explanation teaches a reader how to do the task. Neither one argues that camping is good or bad. If either passage began "Every family should go camping," it would have switched to argument.

Misconception check — exposition is my opinion. Students often think an expository essay is a place to say what they believe about a topic. It is tempting because school essays so often ask "What do you think?" But exposition explains. "How a food bank sorts donations" is exposition; "Our town needs a second food bank" is argument. The cure is the job test: ask whether the piece wants the reader to understand or to agree. If it wants agreement, save it for Week 7.

2. Significance: give the story a point

Picture a friend who tells you, in order, everything that happened at work yesterday. Clocked in, restocked shelves, ate lunch, clocked out. When they stop, you wait for the point, and it never comes. Nothing was wrong with the events. The story had no reason to be told.

Significance is a narrative's "so what?": the point the story exists to make. It does the work a thesis does in an essay. Last week your thesis told the reader what the whole essay would prove. In a story, the significance tells the reader why these events, out of all the events in your life, were worth their time.

You can deliver significance two ways.

Stated: you say it in a sentence, often near the end.
Implied: you end on an image or an action that carries the point without naming it, and the reader draws the conclusion.

Worked example — two endings for the camping story. The camping story builds to one line. After the slipping poles and the ruined instructions, the sister finally speaks: "At last she took the flashlight out of her mouth and said, 'We should have practiced.'" That line is the turn, the moment the conflict (wet hands against a tent they had never pitched) comes to a head. Now the story needs an ending.

Stated significance: "That night taught me that preparation happens before the weather turns, not during it."
Implied significance: "The next weekend, we pitched the tent twice in the backyard, in full sun."

Both endings carry the same point. The stated one makes sure no reader misses it. The implied one trusts the reader, and readers often remember a point they worked out for themselves. Which to choose depends on your audience, the Week 1 question. A scholarship committee reading forty personal statements may want the point stated. A reader of a short story collection usually wants it implied.

A caveat about this choice: neither ending is the correct one. Strong writers use both. What a narrative cannot do is skip the point altogether.

Pause and think. Choose one:

(a) Think of a story you have told more than once, such as a bad first day or a lucky break. Write its significance as one stated sentence.
(b) Think of the same kind of story, and write one final image or action that would imply its significance without stating it.

Misconception check — a narrative is what happened, so it needs no point. Students often think a narrative essay is a record: write down the events in order and stop. It is tempting because a story feels complete once the events are over. But a reader who finishes a list of events asks "so what?" The cure is to decide the significance before you draft, and then let it choose your details, your scene, and your ending.

3. Show, don't tell: sensory evidence instead of named feelings

Think of a friend who says, "The concert was amazing." You nod, but you do not feel much. Now imagine the friend says, "The bass was so loud that my water bottle buzzed against the railing." Suddenly you are there. The first sentence told you a verdict. The second gave you something to experience.

That difference has a name.

Telling is writing that names a feeling or a judgment, such as "I was miserable" or "it was a disaster." It asks the reader to accept the writer's word instead of experiencing the moment.
Showing is writing that gives the concrete sensory detail of a moment, such as what could be seen, heard, or felt. The reader experiences the moment and reaches the feeling without being told it.

A sensory detail is a detail that reaches one of the five senses: rain drumming on a roof, wet poles slipping through fingers, a smell of burnt toast. Sensory details are the evidence that showing is built from. In Week 3, a paragraph needed evidence for its point. In a narrative, sensory detail is that evidence.

Worked example — the told version becomes the shown version. Start with the told version (illustrative): "Our first camping trip was a disaster. I was miserable and frustrated the whole time, and setting up the tent was the worst part."

Mark the telling words. Put a T beside every sentence that names a feeling or a judgment instead of showing it. Here the key words are "disaster", "miserable", "frustrated", and "worst". Both sentences earn a T.
Ask what the writer saw, heard, and felt at the worst moment. The answers are physical: rain on the car, water down the neck, poles that would not stay put, instructions turned to mush, a sister holding the flashlight.
Write those details as sentences, and leave the feeling words out.

The shown version: "Rain drummed on the car roof and ran off the brim of my cap, down the back of my neck. The tent poles kept slipping through my wet fingers, and the instruction sheet in my pocket had turned to gray pulp. My sister held the flashlight in her teeth and said nothing."

Count the senses. Sound: the rain drumming. Touch: water down the neck, poles slipping. Sight: the gray pulp, the flashlight in her teeth. Put an S beside each of those sentences. The word "miserable" never appears, and yet every reader knows exactly how that night felt. What changed: named feelings became sensory evidence, so the reader experiences the misery instead of taking the writer's word for it.

In practice (your tools). In your word processor, select a sentence and use Insert, then Comment (the same command is on the Review tab in many programs). Type T for a telling sentence or S for a showing sentence. Then read only the comments down the margin. A page with a long run of T comments is a page that needs a scene.

Misconception check — showing means more adjectives. Students often think the way to show is to pile on describing words: "a terrible, awful, miserable night." It is tempting because adjectives feel descriptive. But "terrible" and "awful" are still judgments; they still tell. The cure is a rule you can carry: showing is specific sensory evidence, not more adjectives. Ask what a camera and a microphone would have picked up, and write that.

4. Concrete versus abstract words: words a reader can picture

Try to picture "disappointment." Now try to picture a birthday cake with the frosting slid off one side. The second picture arrives at once; the first does not arrive at all. That is the gap between two kinds of words.

A concrete word names something a reader can see, hear, touch, taste, or smell, such as a cap, a flashlight, or a tent pole.
An abstract word names an idea, a feeling, or a judgment that cannot be pictured directly, such as misery, frustration, or disaster.

Abstract words are not bad words. "Preparation" is abstract, and the camping story's stated significance needs it. Abstract words are good at naming ideas. They are poor at making a reader live through a moment.

Worked example — sorting the camping words. Take the key words from the two camping versions and sort them.

Key words from the told and shown camping passages, sorted as abstract or concrete
Passage	Abstract words	Concrete words
Told version	disaster, miserable, frustrated, worst	tent
Shown version	(none)	cap, tent poles, instruction sheet, flashlight

The told version leans on abstract words; its one concrete word, "tent", is the object the writer never describes. The shown version leans on concrete ones. When you revise a narrative, circle your abstract words. Where an abstract word is doing the work of a moment, trade it for the concrete thing that produced the feeling.

Exposition needs concrete words too. "Choose a good spot" is vague; "choose the highest flat ground so that water drains away from you" tells a reader exactly what to look for. In an explanation, a concrete word is the difference between a step a reader can follow and a step they have to guess at.

Misconception check — big words make writing sound smarter. Students often reach for abstract words because they sound serious: "It was a transformative experience of personal growth." It is tempting because school writing often sounds that way. But a reader cannot see "personal growth." The cure is to find the concrete moment that made you grow, write that, and let the abstract word come later, once, if at all.

5. Scene versus narrative summary: spend detail where the point lives

A movie of a road trip does not show all six hours of highway. It cuts. One shot of the car pulling out, one of a gas station sign, and suddenly the family is at the lake. Then the camera slows down for the argument on the dock. Writers make the same choice with words.

A scene is a stretch of a narrative that slows down to show one moment in full, with sensory detail and often dialogue, because that moment carries the story's point.
A narrative summary is a stretch of a narrative that moves quickly over time that does not carry the point. (In Week 2, a summary restated a text; a narrative summary compresses time inside your own story.)

Worked example — where the camping story spends its words. The camping story uses both.

Narrative summary (illustrative): "We drove for three hours, found our campsite, and unloaded the car as the clouds came in." One sentence covers three hours, because nothing in those hours carries the point.
Scene: the shown version is the scene. It spends three sentences on a few minutes, because the slipping poles and the ruined instructions are where the point lives.

Look at the ratio. Three hours get one sentence. A few minutes get three sentences. That imbalance is the skill. The story's significance is about preparation, so the moment when the lack of preparation bites gets the detail. The drive does not.

Here is the decision rule. Before you draft, write your significance in one sentence. Then find the moment where that significance is most visible. That moment gets the scene. Everything else gets summary, or gets cut.

Misconception check — more detail is always better. Students often think that a vivid narrative describes everything vividly. It is tempting because teachers praise detail. But detail spread evenly over every minute buries the moment that matters; the reader cannot tell where to look. The cure is to aim your detail. Detail is aimed, not poured.

6. Order and transitions: chronological order for stories, process order for explanations

Picture a coworker training you to close a coffee shop. They tell you to lock the door, then mention that you should have counted the register first, then say the lights go off before the alarm, or maybe after. By the end you know every step and you still cannot close the shop. The steps were right. The order was missing.

Both modes need an order, and both need words that signal it.

Chronological order arranges events in the order they happened. It is the usual order for a narrative.
A time transition is a word or phrase, such as "by the time", "at last", or "the next weekend", that tells the reader how far a story has moved forward in time.
Process order arranges an explanation as the steps of a task, in the order a reader would carry them out.
A sequence transition is a word or phrase, such as "first", "next", "then", or "finally", that marks a step's place in a process.

Week 3 asked you for transitions that name a real relationship. Time and sequence transitions are exactly that: they name a relationship in time.

Worked example — the order of both camping versions. The story runs from the drive, to the rain, to the struggle with the poles, to the next weekend. Its time transitions, "as the clouds came in", "at last", and "the next weekend", signal each step forward.

The expository version has five steps, each opened by a sequence transition:

"First, practice pitching the tent once at home on a dry day."
"Next, at the campsite, choose the highest flat ground so that water drains away from you."
"Then lay out the ground sheet and the tent, and connect the poles."
"After that, clip the tent to the poles and stake each corner."
"Finally, stretch the rain fly over the top and stake it tight."

Read the steps in a scrambled order and the explanation stops working: a reader cannot clip a tent to poles that are not yet connected. Process order is not a style choice. It follows the task. What changed between a scrambled list and this one: the steps now match the order of the work, and each transition tells the reader where they are.

One limitation: chronological order is the usual order for a story, not the only one. Some stories open on the most dramatic moment and then go back. If you try that, you need even clearer time transitions, so the reader never loses track of when they are.

Misconception check — the reader will figure out the order. Students often write events or steps in a jumble and trust the reader to sort them. It is tempting because the order is obvious to you; you were there. But the reader was not. The cure is to pick an order, keep it, and signal every move with a time or sequence transition.

7. Cut the purple prose: over-writing buries the moment

Imagine a restaurant review that begins, "The magnificent, breathtaking, utterly transcendent soup danced upon my grateful tongue like a symphony of the gods." You learn nothing about the soup. You learn a lot about the reviewer's adjectives. That is purple prose.

Purple prose is over-written prose that piles on adjectives, adverbs, and grand comparisons. It draws attention to the writing and buries the moment it was meant to show.

Worked example — cutting the purple version. Here is the purple version of the camping night (illustrative): "The cruel, relentless, icy rain poured down furiously from the dark and angry heavens as my heart sank into a bottomless ocean of misery."

Mark the purple. Write "cut" in the margin beside every phrase that piles on description without showing a moment: "cruel, relentless, icy", "furiously", "dark and angry heavens", "a bottomless ocean of misery".
Ask what is left that a camera could record. Rain. A person under it.
Rebuild from one concrete detail that does the work: "Rain ran off the brim of my cap, down the back of my neck."

The adjectives are gone, and the reader can feel the rain. Notice that the purple version had plenty of words and still showed no moment. More adjectives are not showing; that is the same lesson as Section 3, seen from the other side.

Cutting is a skill you will build all term. As a preview of Week 13, here is an illustrative wordy sentence and its cut: "Due to the fact that the survey was very short, there were many students who completed it." (17 words) → "Because the survey was short, many students completed it." (9 words). Nearly half the words are cut, and the meaning stays. Purple prose and wordiness are cousins: both make a reader work through words that do no work.

Misconception check — purple prose is good description. Students often think that the more elaborate a sentence is, the more descriptive it is. It is tempting because elaborate sentences sound like effort. But a reader can only picture what the words point to, and "angry heavens" points to nothing in particular. The cure is to cut until one concrete detail does the work, then stop.

8. Check the machine: a chatbot's "improved" story

You paste your camping paragraph into a chatbot and ask it to "make this better." In a few seconds it hands back something smooth. Before you accept it, read it with the marks you have been using all chapter.

A chatbot asked to "improve" a story often does two things. It pours in adjectives and grand comparisons, which is purple prose. And it praises the draft without pointing to anything ("This is a vivid and engaging narrative!"), which is hollow praise. It can also do something quieter: it can replace your plain sentences with polished ones that sound like no one in particular, erasing your voice. And it cannot know what happened that night. If it adds a detail, such as a thunderclap or a sleeping bag, that detail is invented.

Worked example — reading a chatbot's revision. Suppose a chatbot returns this illustrative revision of the shown version: "The relentless rain cascaded mercilessly over us like a cold betrayal, the poles defied my desperate fingers, and my sister stood beside me like a silent sentinel."

Mark purple prose: "relentless", "cascaded mercilessly", "like a cold betrayal", "like a silent sentinel". Each one gets "cut".
Mark what was lost: the gray pulp of the instruction sheet is gone, and so is the flashlight in her teeth, the one detail that made the scene feel real.
Mark the telling that crept back in: "desperate" names a feeling.
Decide what to keep. Here very little survives; the original shown version is stronger. You might keep one phrase if it is accurate and sounds like you.

What changed and why it matters: the chatbot's version is longer and fancier, but it shows less and sounds less like the writer. The writer judges; the tool drafts.

In practice (your tools). When you use a chatbot as a coach on a story, ask it a narrower question than "make this better." For example: "Do not rewrite this. Point to the one sentence where a reader would most want more sensory detail, and say why." Then write that detail yourself, from your own memory of what happened.

Misconception check — the chatbot's version is better because it sounds more professional. Students often trust a revision because it sounds polished. It is tempting because polish is easy to hear and hard to argue with. But polish is not showing, and a stranger's voice is not your voice. The cure is to run the same marks on the machine's version that you run on your own: T for telling, "cut" for purple prose, and a check that every detail really happened.

9. Draft the first major essay: a narrative or an expository essay

Your first major essay of the course asks you to choose one of this week's modes and write from what you already know. A story about a moment that changed how you work, study, or see someone. Or an explanation of a process you can do well, such as a shift-closing routine, a family recipe, or a repair you have made more than once. You use no outside sources. Your memory and your expertise are the material. The driving-test morning from the start of this chapter could become either one: the story of the curb and the orange cones, or the steps for getting ready.

Here is how this week's moves line up for each choice.

If you choose narration: decide your significance first and write it in one sentence. Find the moment where it is most visible and make that your scene. Move through the rest with narrative summary. Keep chronological order and mark it with time transitions. End with a stated or implied significance.
If you choose exposition: decide what a reader should be able to do or understand by the end. Put the steps in process order and open each with a sequence transition. Use concrete words a reader can act on. Do not argue; explain.

Either way, Week 4's structure still holds. Your essay has an opening that sets up the reader, body paragraphs that each do one job, and an ending that lands the point. In a narrative, the significance plays the role your thesis played last week; in exposition, an opening sentence that says what the reader will learn to do plays that role.

Worked example — choosing the mode for one experience. Suppose your experience is learning to make your grandmother's dumplings. As narration, the significance might be that the recipe was never written down, so learning it meant spending an afternoon beside her. The scene is the moment she corrected how you folded the dough. As exposition, the reader should be able to fold a dumpling by the end. The steps run from mixing the dough to sealing the edge. The same experience gives you two different essays. Choose the one whose job you can do best.

Misconception check — a personal essay can skip the structure. Students often think a story is free-form, so the essay structure from Week 4 does not apply. It is tempting because stories feel natural, not built. But a reader still needs to know where they are and why they are reading. The cure is to treat the significance as your thesis and every paragraph as one move toward it.

Key terms

Rhetorical mode — A way of developing a piece of writing, named for the job the writing does, such as telling a story, explaining a process, analyzing a text, or arguing a claim. (first used: 1. Narration versus exposition: two jobs for one experience)
Narration — The mode that tells a true story in order to make a point; the events are chosen and ordered so that the reader reaches the story's significance. (first used: 1. Narration versus exposition: two jobs for one experience)
Exposition — The mode that explains or informs, such as how a task is done or how something works, without arguing that the reader should take a side. (first used: 1. Narration versus exposition: two jobs for one experience)
Significance — A narrative's "so what?": the point the story exists to make, which does the work a thesis does in an essay and may be stated in a sentence or implied by a final image. (first used: 2. Significance: give the story a point)
Telling — Writing that names a feeling or a judgment, such as "I was miserable" or "it was a disaster", and so asks the reader to accept the writer's word instead of experiencing the moment. (first used: 3. Show, don't tell: sensory evidence instead of named feelings)
Showing — Writing that gives the concrete sensory detail of a moment, such as what could be seen, heard, or felt, so the reader experiences it and reaches the feeling without being told it. (first used: 3. Show, don't tell: sensory evidence instead of named feelings)
Sensory detail — A detail that reaches one of the five senses, such as rain drumming on a roof or wet poles slipping through fingers; it is the evidence that showing is built from. (first used: 3. Show, don't tell: sensory evidence instead of named feelings)
Concrete word — A word that names something a reader can see, hear, touch, taste, or smell, such as a cap, a flashlight, or a tent pole. (first used: 4. Concrete versus abstract words: words a reader can picture)
Abstract word — A word that names an idea, a feeling, or a judgment that cannot be pictured directly, such as misery, frustration, or disaster. (first used: 4. Concrete versus abstract words: words a reader can picture)
Scene — A stretch of a narrative that slows down to show one moment in full, with sensory detail and often dialogue, because that moment carries the story's point. (first used: 5. Scene versus narrative summary: spend detail where the point lives)
Narrative summary — A stretch of a narrative that moves quickly over time that does not carry the point, such as a three-hour drive covered in one sentence. (first used: 5. Scene versus narrative summary: spend detail where the point lives)
Chronological order — The arrangement of events in the order they happened, the usual order for a narrative. (first used: 6. Order and transitions: chronological order for stories, process order for explanations)
Time transition — A word or phrase, such as "by the time", "at last", or "the next weekend", that tells the reader how far a story has moved forward in time. (first used: 6. Order and transitions: chronological order for stories, process order for explanations)
Process order — The arrangement of an explanation as the steps of a task, in the order a reader would carry them out. (first used: 6. Order and transitions: chronological order for stories, process order for explanations)
Sequence transition — A word or phrase, such as "first", "next", "then", or "finally", that marks a step's place in a process. (first used: 6. Order and transitions: chronological order for stories, process order for explanations)
Purple prose — Over-written prose that piles on adjectives, adverbs, and grand comparisons; it draws attention to the writing and buries the moment it was meant to show. (first used: 7. Cut the purple prose: over-writing buries the moment)

Summary

A rhetorical mode is a job for writing: narration tells a true story to make a point; exposition explains.
Exposition explains; it does not argue for a side.
Every narrative needs significance, stated in a sentence or implied by a final image.
Telling names a feeling; showing gives the sensory evidence.
Showing is specific sensory evidence, not more adjectives.
Concrete words let a reader picture the moment; abstract words name ideas.
Write a scene for the moment that carries the point; use narrative summary for the rest.
Stories run in chronological order with time transitions; explanations run in process order with sequence transitions.
Cut purple prose until one concrete detail does the work.
Read a chatbot's "improved" story for purple prose, lost detail, invented detail, and hollow praise.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

Sort these three illustrative sentences about a city bus route. Label each one narration, exposition, or argument. (a) "To transfer to the Route 9 bus, tap your card again within the posted transfer window." (b) "The morning the Route 9 bus broke down, a stranger lent me her umbrella for the whole walk to work." (c) "The city should run the Route 9 bus every ten minutes."
Here is an illustrative telling sentence from a story about a first day at a new job: "I was really nervous and overwhelmed on my first day at the warehouse." Rewrite it as showing, and name the senses your version reaches.
An illustrative narrative about a volunteer's first shift at a community literacy center has this significance: "I learned that listening to a learner is part of the teaching, not a break from it." The shift included a 40-minute bus ride, a 15-minute orientation, and a 5-minute conversation with an older learner who wanted to talk about her garden. Which stretch should be the scene, and which should be narrative summary? Explain.
Put these illustrative steps for making a pot of rice in process order, and add a sequence transition to each: "Cover the pot and turn the heat to low." "Rinse the rice until the water runs clear." "Let it sit, covered, for a few minutes before you serve it." "Bring the rice and water to a boil."

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Sentence (a) is exposition: it explains how to do something and takes no side. Sentence (b) is narration: it tells a true moment, and its concrete detail (a stranger's umbrella) points toward a significance about kindness. Sentence (c) is argument: "should" claims that something ought to change and asks the reader to agree. The job test sorts them: understand, experience, or agree.
One possible showing version: "The forklift beeped behind me as I tried to read the bin numbers on the shelves, and my supervisor's instructions ran together into one long sentence I could not hold on to." It reaches sound (the beeping, the instructions) and sight (the bin numbers). The words "nervous" and "overwhelmed" are gone; the reader feels them anyway. Any answer that trades the named feelings for concrete sensory detail of that morning works.
The 5-minute conversation should be the scene, because that is where the significance about listening is visible. The 40-minute bus ride and the 15-minute orientation should be narrative summary, perhaps one sentence for both. The longest stretch of time gets the fewest words, because it does not carry the point. Detail is aimed, not poured.
First, rinse the rice until the water runs clear. Next, bring the rice and water to a boil. Then cover the pot and turn the heat to low. Finally, let it sit, covered, for a few minutes before you serve it. The order follows the task: the rinse has to happen before the rice goes into the boiling water, and the rice cannot rest until it has cooked.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz. Next week, rhetorical analysis turns the same close reading on a real speech, using a model of four appeals.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com