Narrative Accounts

Types of Narrative Accounts

• Exploration Narrative -records info about the writer’s own travels to an unfamiliar place

• Journal- records daily events and personal observations

• Historical Narrative- records major historical events. May be firsthand or secondhand

• Captivity narrative- records events and personal feelings during the writer’s captivity

• Slave narrative- records the injustices of slavery and often tells how the writer escaped or was freed

Firsthand accounts of what the explorers experienced in the New World. (Secondhand accounts are when the info we get has gone through few people)

Explorers described many details to inform people at home about what it was like in America.

They wanted their experience to seem exciting and worthwhile so they would get more financial backing for their expeditions

Exploration Narratives

1528: Landed near Tampa Bay with 400 Spanish soldiers to explore Florida’s west coast

Experienced hostile natives, illness, and near starvation, so they sailed to Mexico

Only 4 men survived the excursion to Mexico City

Cabeza de Vaca gained a reputation as a medicine man.

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca(1490?-1557?)A Journey Through Texas

First European to visit the Grand Canyon Reported about the difficult terrain and

conditions, and compared the height of the canyon walls to one of the world’s tallest towers

Garcia Lopez de Cardenas(1540)

Boulders Taller Than the Great Tower of Seville

explorer, poet, mapmaker, and egotist Helped found Jamestown in 1607

Obtain food Enforce discipline Deal with local natives Mapped out land

John Smith(1580-1631)

The General History of Virginia

John Smith(1580-1631)

The General History of Virginia

The General History of Virginia emphasizes:1. The ordeal Europeans experienced crossing the

Ocean2. The struggle to find food3. The challenges of working with the Native

Americans

John Smith is the writer of this narrative account, but he writes about himself in the 3rd person. Why did he do this?

Reading Strategy: Breaking Down Sentences

•Good for helping you understand the main idea of a long, complicated sentence•Identify WHO is doing WHAT

Two days after, Powhatan, having disguised himself in the most fearfulest manner he could, caused Captain Smith to be brought forth to a great house in the woods and there upon a mat by the fire to be left alone. Not long after, from behind a mat that divided the house, was made the most dolefulest noise he had ever heard; then Powhatan more like a devil than a man, with some two hundred more as black as himself, came unto him and told him now they were friends, and presently he should go to Jamestown.

But now was all our provision spent, the sturgeon gone, all helps abandoned, each hour expecting the fury of the savages; when God, the patron of all good endeavors, in that desperate extremity so changed the hearts of the savages that they brought such plenty of their fruits and provision as no man wanted.

And of these, in the time of most distress, there was but six or seven sound persons who to their great commendations, be it spoken, spared no pains night or day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed them meat, made their beds washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them. In a word, did at the homely and necessary offices for them which dainty and queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear named; and all this willingly and cheerfully, without any grudging in the least, showing herein their true love unto their friends and brethren; a rare example and worthy to be remembered.

Present Perfect Tensevs.

Past Perfect Tense

Compare these two sentences:

I have been to California.

I had been to California.

Present tense

helping verb

Past tense helping

verb

Present perfect: An action that started in the past and continues to the present.

How to form the present perfect: HAVE / HAS + past participle

Examples of the present perfect: I have lived in this city for six months. I have been to Japan twice. My mother has just gone to the store. Janet has lived abroad for five years. I haven’t seen the new movie yet. Have you finished your homework?

It’s very common to use the contractions ‘ve and ‘s in the present perfect: I’ve been to Japan three times. My mother’s just gone to the store. Janet’s lived abroad for five years.

Past perfect: An action that happened before a time in the past.

How to form the past perfect: HAD + past participle

Examples of the past perfect: I went to Japan in 1988 and 1991. I turned 10 years old in

1994. I had been to Japan twice by the time I was 10

years old. My husband ate breakfast at 6:00 AM. I woke up at 7:00

AM. When I woke up this morning, my husband had

already eaten breakfast.

It’s common to use the contraction ‘d in the past perfect: I’d traveled to five different countries by the time I was 20 years old.