Destiny Cordell’s meta-narratives for the Short Course in Sentence Style

Meta-Narrative One

                My first English assignment was to write a story about getting up in the morning and coming to Ashland Community and Technical College without using any prepositions.   This assignment was difficult because I frequently use prepositions in my speech and writing.  I wanted to write, “My husband and I picked up the kids and headed out of the door”; however, it turned into, “I held my daughter’s hand, my husband got our son and we were ready.”  Instead of writing, “I put on my make up,” I wrote, “powdering my nose.”  I look forward to writing the next exercise when we do not have any writing restrictions.

Meta-Narrative Two

                My English class was ending the fourth week when my professor assigned another writing assignment.  The first assignment was to write a story about getting up and coming to school without using any prepositions.  That assignment made me think about every word I typed.  It almost aggravated me to the point that I would completely omit a sentence just to avoid a preposition.    According to the professor’s website, the new assignment was to, “Write a paragraph (a modified version of narrative one) that describes your trip from home to the college. This time, however, some of your sentences must contain prepositional phrases. “ 

I thought it would be much easier to write my trip from home to the college because I could use prepositions.  The problem I encountered was that I had put so much thought into writing without prepositions in the first writing exercise that I actually liked my story without the prepositions.  I enjoyed writing with the restriction. 

In order to comply with the assignment, I made a few minor changes in the paper.  In the first paper I wrote, “…overslept fifteen minutes.”  I added one preposition and rewrote it to read, “…overslept by fifteen minutes.”    I scanned through my paper and read, “…and kicked my husband a few times.”  I added the prepositional phrase, “to get him moving.”  The prepositional phrase explains why I kicked my husband.    In the sentence, “… a little goes a long way.” I added the prepositional phrase, “of something.”  This changed the sentence to, “a little of something goes a long way.”  The last change I made to the paper was in the last paragraph.  In the first paper I wrote, “There was not much traffic.”  I added two prepositional phrases and changed the sentence to read, “There was not much traffic at seven o’clock in the morning.”

Overall, it is easier to write in subject, verb, and object form with prepositional phrases.  It is natural to the author as well as the audience.  In writing, authors must be very descriptive in order to provide the audience with a mental image of the scene.  If I wrote, “The refinery is closing,” it would not provide enough of a description to distinguish which refinery was closing.  If I added a few prepositional phrases it would position the factory at a specific location.  For example, “The factory was closing after sixty-five years in Catlettsburg, Kentucky.”   The prepositional phrase “after sixty-five years” tells the audience that the refinery has been at its location for quite a long time.  The other phrase that describes the location is, “in Catlettsburg, Kentucky.”  This gives the geographical location of the refinery.  Prepositions are an essential part of the English language and should not be omitted on a regular basis.

Meta-Narrative Three

During the 5^th week of my English 101 class, I received my third writing exercise assignment.  The first assignment was to write a story with one restriction.  The story could not contain any prepositions.  Although I thoroughly enjoyed the assignment, I found the second assignment much easier.  I was to add prepositions to the story that displayed writing in more of a natural form.  The third assignment was to change the structure of one of my sentences. 

Writing follows a simple pattern:   subject, verb, and object phrase.  For example, “I walked down the steps.”  The object phrase is “…down the steps.”  By moving the object phrase to the front of the sentence, it takes the place of where the noun naturally belongs.  It does not change the words or the content; it simply changes the form to object phrase, subject and verb.   “Down the steps I walked,” grabs the readers’ attention and emphasizes where, “I walked.”

Since my third revision of my story only contained a few prepositional phrases, it was difficult to choose which one best suited the third assignment.  In my second version of the story I wrote, “There was not much traffic at seven o’clock in the morning.”  I moved the prepositional phrases, “…at seven o’clock in the morning,” to the beginning of the sentence.  “At seven o’clock in the morning, there was not much traffic,” focuses on the lack of traffic due to the time of day. 

I have always heard the saying, “Old habits are hard to break.”  This is true in many aspects of day to day life and also includes writing.  The most common form of sentence structure or style is subject, verb, object phrase.  When my son was in kindergarten all of his assigned reading books followed this structure.  The subject, verb, object phase structure is taught early in education through the use of constant repetition.  By the time middle school approaches, teachers encourage and challenge students to change the sentence structure in writing.  Other parts of speech may also be used to begin the sentence.   Adjectives, adverbs, nouns, verbs and prepositional phrases add variety to writing.  Providing the readers with sentence variety keeps the writing from becoming dull and keeps the reader interested over the course of the story.    

Meta-Narrative Four

At the end of the fifth week of my English 101 class, my instructor assigned a writing exercise that put my knowledge to the test.  We had been working on a paper since the first week.  First, the instructor restricted the writing assignment by not allowing any prepositions.  Second, the class was to add the prepositions.  The third assignment was to move one prepositional phrase to the beginning of a sentence to draw attention to the detail.  The next assignment was to include absolutes in the paper; it proved to be the most difficult by far.

Absolutes are(mostly) a two word combination that lets the reader visualize the action.  The absolute combines a noun with a past or present participle.  This adds to sentence style in writing.  The absolute phrase differs from other sentence styles in that it contains a noun but not a complete predicate.  The predicate is replaced with either a past or a present participle.  In other words, the helping verb is removed from the sentence.  For example, “His teeth gnashing, blood dripping down his chin,” if written with helping verbs would be as such, “His teeth were gnashing and the blood was dripping down his chin.”

Similar to adverbs, absolutes modify a noun or an entire sentence.  “His teeth gnashing, blood dripping down his chin, flesh ripping, and claws securing the antelope to the ground, the hungry lion devoured his prey”;  this sentence puts emphasis on the lion ripping the prey apart.  Absolutes force the reader to visualize the lion eating.  It almost creates a scene of a movie in the head of the reader. 

Since an absolute was to be included in the paper, I tried to find a sentence that I could make the reader visualize the actions.  I wrote, “I scuffed my feet across the wooden floor, confidence lacking, palms sweating, head hanging in hopes that I would go unnoticed.”  The reader sees my feet dragging reluctantly, the nervousness as the sweat builds on my palms, and the humiliation I felt as I entered my new surroundings for the first time.

Meta-Narrative Five

As the ninth week of my English 101 class was drawing to an end the professor assigned the class a fifth writing exercise.   Nine short weeks ago, the professor asked the class to write a paragraph about getting up in the morning and coming to school without using any prepositions.   The purpose of the writing restriction was to make the writer think about the writing.  He told the class this short paragraph would evolve into a short story by the end of the semester.  In the following weeks he assigned several writing exercises that would make each student a better writer. 

The second exercise was to add prepositional phrases.  The purpose of the exercise was to show the importance and necessity of prepositions in writing.  Exercise three was designed to show the importance of sentence structure.  Most sentences follow the pattern: subject, verb, object phrase.  He explained that by changing the order it catches the reader off guard and makes the reader notice that something about the sentence is different.  In the fourth exercise, the professor introduced absolutes and absolute phrases.  In all of my years of schooling, I had never heard about absolutes.  I found the assignment amusing and challenging.  An absolute creates a mental scene in the reader’s mind.  It is more than an image; the words are played out in the reader’s mind like the scene in a movie.  It is an excellent way of putting the reader into the story.

                The one paragraph had exploded into a full blown story with each writing exercise.   At this point my story had become almost two pages long.  With each exercise I added more sentences and challenged myself to pursue writing in a way I never considered before.  The exercise he assigned in class today was to use a participle phrase in the story.  

Participles, although derived from verbs, have been used as nouns as well as adjectives.  Depending on how the participle has been used in the sentence, it could be the subject or in a phrase to describe the subject.  The participle phrase must be used carefully.  It should put the events in the natural order of occurrence and be positioned close to the word it describes.

 For this assignment I evaluated a sentence I had written previously, “‘Just four short years,’ I told myself.’”  I considered the purpose of the participle phrase and decided to revise the sentence, “Flinging my book bag over my shoulder I told myself, ‘Just four short years.’ ”  I put the sentence in a natural order and positioned the prepositional phrase in front of the subject.  

Meta-Narrative Six

Since the beginning of my English class, the professor gave the class exercises to improve our writing skills.  We began by writing a simple story about leaving our houses and driving to school.  With each exercise, we were instructed to change a sentence to make the story more interesting.  We added sentence variety by including prepositional phrases, moving prepositional phrases to the beginning of one of our sentences, absolute phrases, and participle phrases.  This week we were to add a relative clause. 

You may be asking yourself, “What is a relative clause?”  It is a clause that begins with one of the following relative pronouns:  that, who, whom, whose, which, where, when, or why.   The relative pronoun is followed by a phrase, or clause, which provides essential information about the noun it follows.  For example, in this writing exercise I wrote, “I grew up in a small private Christian school, which had no more than eighteen children per grade.”  The relative clause which provides essential information about the school is “which had no more than eighteen children per grade.”

Meta-Narrative Seven

                As the end of the semester draws to a close our English professor’s assignments near an end.  Our class has learned how to make writing more interesting to the audience by creating more complex sentences through the use of various phrases and sentence style and structure.  What started as a simple paragraph, about waking up the morning and driving to school, has been revised numerous times to produce an interesting account of a personal journey through writing.

In one of the last assignments of the semester, our professor asked us to use an appositive in our writing.  An appositive is a noun or pronoun that sets beside another noun or pronoun to explain or identify it.   In my paper I used the words “my husband” very frequently.  I glanced through the paper and found a perfect place to add an appositive.  I wrote, “I stretched my arms and legs and kicked Jay, my husband, a few times to get him moving.”  By adding an appositive to one sentence, I was able to interchange the words “my husband” with his name in the rest of my paper. 

Meta-Narrative Eight

                Professor Napora took his English 101 class on a journey.  On this journey, the class explored and ventured past their familiar surroundings to a place that was as deep as the ocean and as vast as the wide open skies.  The professor led the class through the world of writing.  He opened the students’ minds to a style of writing that was interesting and believable.   He taught the students methods that authors use to make readers’ visualize the words. 

                Though the semester, Mr. Napora assigned writing exercises to help the students reach their full writing potential.   By the end of the semester, what began as a simple paragraph turned into an interesting narrative.   The last writing exercise of the semester was to include a noun cluster in the narrative.  “Noun clusters are strings of nouns that develop a scene simply through naming…” the professor describes on his website.  I had the most difficult time with this exercise.  I looked over the paper that I started at the beginning of the semester.

                In one of my revisions of this paper I wrote, “I moved to Maryland just a few weeks before the school year started and had no choice but to attend a large public school.”  I attempted to add a noun cluster to describe the “large public school.”  In order to develop the scene I rewrote the sentence to read, “I moved to Maryland just a few weeks before the school year started and had no choice but to attend a large public school, the three-story building, hallways, stairways, and classrooms.”

                With this last exercise, the journey did not end.  Professor Napora handed the students a map, which would guide them through the confusing world of writing when they became lost and confused.   He was a trail blazer, an explorer, an English Professor, who led his class on a journey.

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