Writing in the first year composition class allows students to interact with an audience in order to inform or persuade (Behar 143).  In the current-traditional teaching pedagogy, there are typically five types of writing assignments: narrative, expository, persuasive, compare and contrast, and prose. Most college composition instructors from the current composition teaching pedagogy see these different types of writing as elements or strategies that are combined within a paper rather than different sorts of papers. For example, someone may use a story to persuade and also include some exposition or comparison/contrast in the same paper, or a narrative might contain information or comparison/contrast. In narrative assignments, students usually write a personal essay, journal, reflection, analysis or any other autobiographical story about themselves. This type of narrative is primarily used at the community colleges in developmental writing courses and in basic writing courses.  

When used at the four-year university, narratives are primarily seen in advanced exposition and taught as memoirs, folk tales and fables.  Students tell stories about themselves that have a beginning, middle, and end and that use plot to make the story interesting and complex (Sharton 2). In the first year composition course, the word narrative is not used, and narrative writing assignments are usually used at the beginning of the term as way for teachers to know, “a history or an account of a person’s development…..meaningful language experiences with their peers, at home, and at various community sites” (Scott 108) and are called literacy narratives, and reflective writing essays.