Click on ‘A Friend Like No Other’ to read Tara’s narrative published in the UC Santa Barbara student writing textbook, Starting Lines.
My personal narrative, “A Friend Like No Other,” became published in UC Santa Barbara’s Student Anthology textbook. This textbook is used as teaching material in lower division UC Santa Barbara writing courses, showcasing examples of exceptional student writing for course assignments. Hence, the audience is predominantly first-year students at UC Santa Barbara. This piece was selected because while I wrote it during my first year of college, this shows my ability to tell a story. As a future lawyer, storytelling is a skill I need because the job requires telling stories as part of making an argument.
In this narrative, I effectively tell the story of my life and friendship with my mom by having clear organization, analysis, and colorful word choice. I created organization in my story by each paragraph being about a different stage of my life, arranged chronologically. Additionally, the analysis I provide about my life history gives the facts meaning, showing why they matter, to begin with. Finally, the word choice I use gave life to my stories, transporting the reader to my experience. An example of this is when I purposely misspelled a word to show my mom’s accent.