Deconstructing Learners’ Choices in Composing the Narrative Essay in Secondary Schools

This paper evaluated narrative essay writing practices in secondary schools. The major question the paper sought to answer was what choices did secondary school learners make in writing narratives based on their writing skills and competence? This was done through qualitative data in which learners’ narrative essays were evaluated to determine how faithful the learners were in sticking to the elements of the narrative. The compositions chosen were solicited from a group of students who had finished their secondary education and were waiting to join tertiary institutions. These students had attended various secondary schools and were thus suitable for the content of this paper as they manifested the different essay writing regimes adopted by different schools. These were compositions which they had written as part of their normal class exercises.