I find narrative discourse to be very interesting and very important to any story told. While it may seem like it does not have that much effect on the story I think it has more impact than anybody realizes. As we discussed in class, narrative discourse is the manner in which a story is told. This can include style, diction, syntax and vocabulary. Although sometimes we do not realize it as we are reading stories, the narrative discourse of the story completely changes the effect it has on the reader. The stories we have read thus far are a great example of this.

The one that stuck out to me the most as having a unique narrative discourse was the Diary of an Interesting Year. This story was told in a very casual, personal way. Writing the story as a diary made it a lot easier for the audience to connect with the author and the story they were telling. If this story had not been told in the first person or had not been written in short, choppy sentences, it would have seemed a lot less realistic and would not have gotten the point across in the same way. While the actual events in the story have a huge emotional impact on the reader, the manner in which it is told also makes a huge contribution to the story. I know a lot of the kids in our class really connected with this story and it really helped all of us understand the personal effects climate change could have on all of us. The storyline itself cannot get all the credit for this; the narrative discourse combined with the story helped to get the point of the story across.  

An Athabasca Story also had a very interesting narrative discourse. It seemed to be telling the story as some sort of allegory or fable. As a reader, this aspect of the writing definitely kept me interested throughout the story because I wanted to figure out what kind of being Elder Brother was and what the deeper meaning of the story was. This is a common narrative discourse that has been used for years on end but it has never become less effective. Something about teaching lessons using a story causes people to understand it better. It may be the connection with story that people make that allows the point to get across better. An Athabasca Story was an excellent example of how narrative discourse can allow the reader to understand better.

Although I only talked about two of the stories that we have read, all of them offer different types of narrative discourse that all boost the presentation of the story. Many of us in the class agree that stories would help to get people to understand the message of climate change better and the narrative discourse of the stories also play a huge part in this. Narrative discourse is just as important as the story itself and can improve the overall presentation of the story.