The Idea of an Essay, Volume 2

24 “Double Triple Many Lives” by Faithe Smiley Instructor’s Notes Faithe Smiley tells her readers a story about story telling in her literacy narrative. Detail, dialogue, and description, or the 3Ds, are necessary to effectively draw readers into a story, set a scene, develop characters, and reveal universal significance. Point to examples in this essay where Faithe incorporated each of the 3Ds. Identify places where she might have included even more. Writer’s Biography Faithe Smiley is a returning junior English major from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Faithe mostly enjoys creative writing, but also appreciates the challenge of exploring many other styles and forms of writing. In her spare time, she likes writing and reading books. She spends her summers working at a summer day camp run by her church, but hopes to go on another missions trip during a summer in the near future. Double Triple Many Lives I was in preschool when I heard my first stories. They came in the form of stories from the Bible read to us in Sunday School. They were short: only about a dozen sentences each. But because they were short it is now easy to identify each of the three elements of good writing within them. Each began with a main character who had a problem. After a little dialogue between characters, God would help them solve their problem, and the conflict was resolved. At the end of each story was a question meant to convey the significance of the story because preschoolers have to be prompted in order to consider such things. Questions like, “How does God help you in your life?” I do not remember hearing these stories. I only know they were read to me because I work in Sunday School classes and hear them being read to the children I work with. What I do remember,