stereotype narrative essay

113 Stereotype Essay Topics & Examples

Looking for good stereotypes to write about? Look no further! This list contains only the best themes about stereotypes in society for your college essay or project. Whether you need research questions about stereotypes, essay writing tips, or free samples, you will find them here.

❓ How to Write a Stereotype Essay: Do’s and Don’ts

🏆 best stereotype topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay themes about stereotypes, 📌 most interesting stereotype topics to write about, 👍 good research topics about stereotype, ❓ research questions about stereotypes.

All people are different, which makes living without some ingrained assumptions difficult. From discrimination to mere harmless expectations, stereotyping plays a prevalent part in people’s interactions, often imposing particular behavior on them.

Thus, writing a stereotype essay is only as simple as recognizing both the every-day and the society-wide patterns of thinking, finding the connections between them, and writing them down.

• Think of a specific topic before you begin writing or outlining your paper. Do so by penning a thesis statement, which will not only help you stick to your central theme but also remove any irrelevant ideas. Since there are multitudes of stereotype essay topics, this action will help you focus your thoughts on a single issue.
• Brainstorm your problem beforehand by drafting an outline. Whether you are writing a stereotype threat essay or creating a comprehensive list of anti-female education beliefs, you should create a smooth narrative that flows with ease from one point to another. Furthermore, an outline saves you time, which you would have spent on rewriting those parts of your stereotype essay that are lacking in information or structure.
• Read sample essays. An outstanding stereotypes essay example can act as an excellent incentive to begin writing by demonstrating writing tactics and ways of presenting information to the audience. You may even uplift some of those techniques to your own work to increase the quality of your paper.
• Give your essay an eye-catching title. Stereotype essay titles should not only give the audience a glimpse of what the central theme is but also invite them to read further. The more hooks you have at the beginning of your paper, the higher the possibility of a reader going beyond the first paragraph.
• Generate a comprehensive bibliography. With the number of studies on this topic, there exists a vast amount of book and journal titles that can help you find plenty of interesting themes about stereotypes.
• Pick a broad problem. An essay has a specified word count, and your instructor will not reward writing over the set limit. Choose an issue that you are sure you can adequately cover in the specified pages, and remember to adhere to your received instructions. There is nothing worse than writing an excellent essay and losing marks for not following directions.
• Plagiarize from others’ essay examples. Copying and pasting sentences is an academic offense, as is merely rewording them, and you should avoid discrediting your hard work. Getting your paper disqualified is not worth a small increase in marks.
• Attempt to subvert every stereotype you come across. While deconstructing some issues is a noble endeavor, this work may be extensive and exhausting, as well as not the main point of your paper. Remember your thesis statement, and work in those facts that relate to it.
• Make light of your chosen problem. Just as with your title, your writing should remain respectful and academic, using only credible information and referencing trusted sources. Remember that, as with any humanities issue, stereotypes are a societal byproduct that affects living people, who deserve fair treatment.
• Skip the pre-writing stages. Doing so may lead you to write an essay, which is not only off-point but also overwhelmingly one-sided. Your paper should give adequate attention to different sides of one issue, presenting different viewpoints, studies, and academic opinions, which brainstorming helps achieve.

Need more tips? Let IvyPanda guide your writing process!

• Importance of Stereotypes in Communication People are eager to use their prior knowledge about different ethnic groups to be ready for communicating, still, the impact of stereotypes cannot be pure negative or pure positive, and this is why it is […]
• The Male Bashing Stereotype: Formal Critique All of the mistakes and lack of social molding that they show women during their youth are not the stuff that dictates the kind of men they will be in the future.
• Stereotype of Aboriginals and Alcohol in Canada Therefore, it is necessary to research whether the given prejudice has certain grounds to base on, track the measures that are being currently undertaken to eliminate the stereotype and offer other efficient ideas that will […]
• White Female Stereotypes in Media In most instances, the images that are in the media are of exceptionally slim white girls and women, and this sends a negative image to those women that have bigger bodies.
• Hoodies and the stereotype. Bad or not? The hoodie marches had a lot of racial undertones, but it is clear that the victim’s piece of clothing was the centre of attention in these campaigns.
• The “Welfare Queen” Stereotype in the US Reagan’s portrayal of these ladies was used to justify real-world policy changes and contributed to the shrinkage of the social safety net.
• Stereotypes in United Kingdom A stereotype is a common or popular belief about certain people or behaviors of certain individuals. People from different cultures have different stereotypes.
• Stereotype of a Black Female In the following paper, three stereotypes that I have faced in my life will be addressed in terms of the reasons for their formation and the mistakes that lie at the heart of these stereotypes.
• To Be Disabled: Stereotype Analysis The purpose of this paper is to examine, how the stereotype is reinforced in the world, and how disabled people experience it.
• Common Stereotypes and Reinforcing Rhetoric It is safe to assume that due to this stereotype of lies, the members of the public are not willing to listen to politicians anymore because they expect these politicians to be feeding them with […]
• Perception, Stereotype and Empathy As a result, most of the people have believed that this is the case. The purpose of this activity is to illustrate that we all have different perceptions and explore the reasons associated with this.
• High Design, Stereotype, Postmodernism What is the most complicated about the heavenly goods is that one and the same object cannot be changed in a way which would distinguish it greatly from the objects of the same kind.”Beyond a […]
• The Dynamics of Stereotype Priming and Assimilation The activation of a mental representation of a social group leads to behaviour corresponding to specific attributes of the stereotype. For priming a stereotype some researchers have held that accessibility of the information and the […]
• Traditional Stereotype of Female Characters Analysis The methodology used by the author is a first content analysis of the video games, identification of the protagonists, and then studying the effect it has on girls.
• Racism Issues: Looking and Stereotype In order to find the answer to this question, it is important to introduce the concept of ‘looking’ supporting with the writing of Sturken and Cartwright, Hall, Goodwin, and Gooding-Williams.
• Women and the Industry of the Trap Music: Empowering or Succumbing to the Stereotype? Indeed, on the further scrutiny of the problem, one will see that the issue of female DJs in the trap music domain In light of the specified argument, one may infer that abandoning the trap […]
• Stereotype of Video Games Being for Boys In the article author speaks about the problem of different video games that designed for boys and for girls. In this article author explains that gender difference in the video games is a marketing strategy […]
• Stereotype Threats and Social Psychology Pickren defines social norm as “The rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society”.to the society, it was acceptable to treat the immigrants differently from the rest of the population because […]
• Stereotype-Conductive Behavior The notion that fat people are lazy is because many of them avoid doing activities that would require them to spend a lot of energy and movement. In many cases, the speed of fat people […]
• Chinese Stereotypes Reflected in Movies The main research objective will be to: “Analyse Chinese stereotypes in movies” The specific objectives will include: To identify the various stereotypical depictions of the Chinese in movies To determine the relationship between Chinese stereotype […]
• Review of Stereotype Threat and Arousal: Effects on Women’s Math Performance The variables used in the study were gender, difficulty of the tests, and the perception of stereotype threat. The results of the data were that the implication of stereotype threat did in fact negatively affect […]
• Stereotypes in the media Media has continued to group people by their tribes and the effects of the tribal stereotype is mostly felt in the less developed world.
• Influence of activating implicit gender stereotypes in females The results revealed that the participants who were subjected to the gender based prime performed relatively poorly compared to their counterparts on the nature prime.
• “Stereotype Threat: Effects on Education” by Smith, Cary Stacy, and Li-Ching Hung In some cases, only the topic of these sources is similar to that of the article and not their subject matter.
• Stereotypes of Islam and Muslims in the West This was evident after Shadid made analyses of various publications which analyzed the threat of Islam and the Muslim community to the western countries and fashion such stereotypical messages in the realm of myth.
• How Anthropology Helps to Evaluate Stereotypes The recent study on leadership shows that women have been enlightened and they are up to take their positions in leadership.
• Towards Evaluating the Relationship Between Gender Stereotypes & Culture It is therefore the object of this paper to examine the relationship between gender stereotypes and culture with a view to elucidating how gender stereotypes, reinforced by our diverse cultural beliefs, continue to allocate roles […]
• Stereotypes people have toward Chinese Most of these studies focus on the major stereotypes held about the Chinese but forget to address the effects of these stereotypes to the Chinese students especially the ones studying in other countries.
• How contemporary toys enforce gender stereotypes in the UK Children defined some of the physical attributes of the toys.”Baby Annabell Function Doll” is a likeness of a baby in that it that it has the size and physical features of a baby.
• Stereotypes and Their Effects Three common stereotypes include the perception that Muslims are terrorists, Christians are ignorant, and that women are less intelligent than men.
• Stereotype Threat: Women’s Abilities in Math On the other hand, in study 2, they demonstrated that it is possible to reduce the performance differences when elimination of the stereotype that is descriptive of the anticipated performance is done to ensure that […]
• Gender Studies: Gender Stereotypes From what is portrayed in the media, it is possible for people to dismiss others on the basis of whether they have masculinity or are feminine.
• Gender stereotypes of superheroes The analysis is based on the number of male versus female characters, the physical characteristic of each individual character, the ability to solve a problem individually as either male or female and both males and […]
• Cross-Cultural Interaction: Prejudices and Stereotypes In this regard, the concept of stereotype also influences social categorization and information sharing in the course of cross-cultural communication. One of the most effective ways to exterminate stereotypic and linear thinking is to change […]
• Aspects of Rhetoric and Stereotype Image It is clear then, that feminists are found to be of negative stereotypes from the start. The stereotypes in this group are a complete revelation of both positive and negative image.
• African-American Students and Mathematics Achievement Gap: Stereotype or Reality? The purpose of this research is to find whether there is the evidence of the math performance gap between Black and White students and, if we find that it exists, to throw ling upon its […]
• Sex, Lies, and Stereotypes: Being Prejudiced Because of Inequalities Is Not Always Correct The exhibition under consideration, Sex, Lies and Stereotypes, is aimed to prove how unfair but still constant discrimination of people is; and several illustrative posters like Women Are Not Chicks or Oh, So That Explains […]
• Canadian Stereotypes On the cover of the novel Canadian stereotypes, there will be the image of the maple leaf bag. The image of the maple leaf bag will represent both the flag and the history of the […]
• Learning to Stereotype: The Lifelong Romance One of the most enchanting novels in the American literature, the piece by Cahan offers a plunge into the world of the usual.
• Stereotypes of American Citizens McAndrew and Akande lament that in the United States, African Americans are the most stereotyped due to racial discrimination and the dark history of slavery.
• Gender Stereotypes on Television Gender stereotyping in television commercials is a topic that has generated a huge debate and it is an important topic to explore to find out how gender roles in voice-overs TV commercials and the type […]
• The Stereotype Of A Smart High Achieving Asian American
• Racial Stereotyping : A Stereotype, As Defined By The Merriam
• Prejudice, Stereotype, Discrimination, and In-Group Vs. Outgroup
• The Sports Media and the Marketing Advertisers a Hypermasculine Stereotype
• Think like a Monkey: Borrowing from Animal Social Dynamics to Reduce Stereotype Threat
• The Metamorphosis Of The Schemer Stereotype
• How Stereotype Threat May Cause Poor Performance In Women
• Women Are Worse Drivers than Men Stereotype
• What Is The Function Of Racist Stereotype In Blackface Minstrelsy
• How Race And Stereotype Can Affect Justice Being Served
• The Imposition of Gender Stereotype by Society Today
• Women’s Oppression In Hurston’s “Sweat”: The Stereotype Of Women’s Role In Society
• Understanding the Gender Stereotype of the Macho-Man Myth
• Use Of A Stereotype Cue On The Perceived Level Of Mathematics
• The Stereotype of Women in a Patriarchal Society
• The Stereotype of Female Taming in Shakespeare’s Time in the Taming of the Shrew
• The Stereotype of the Dumb Blonde in Legally Blonde, a Movie by Robert Luketic
• Americanization : The Creation Of The Indian Stereotype
• The Impact of Stereotype Threat on Age Differences in Memory Performance
• Sexually Driven Media Advertisements Objectify And Stereotype
• Advantage and Disadvantage of Fitting Into the Stereotype
• An Analysis of the Stereotype of Masculinity in the Early 1800s
• Analyzing How a Conventional or Stereotype Character Functions to Achieve Authors Purposes
• Perspective and Stereotype in Western Detective Novels
• The Stereotype Of Criminally Disposed People In Poverty
• Women ‘s Portrayal Of Women Essay – Brand, Marketing, Stereotype, Gen
• Feminine Autonomy and Erasing the Male Stereotype in Juno and the Paycoc
• The History of Chief Illiniwek as a University of Illinois Mascot and Racist Stereotype
• Women ‘s Role For Society ‘s Stereotype Towards Women
• Why Stereotype Based on Blood Type Genotype or Body Type?
• Do Television Advertisements Stereotype the Roles of Men and Women in the Society
• An Analysis of Stereotype Italian American in Sopranos the Cable Show in United States
• Women: Does Stereotype Threat Affect Their Ability?
• American Cheerleader: The Icon, The Stereotype, And The Truth
• Alice Sebold And The Stranger Stereotype
• An Analysis of the Negative Stereotype of the Jewish Race in Jewbird and The Last Mohican
• The Stereotype African Characters in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• The Impact Of The Violent African American Stereotype In Rap Music
• The Teenage Driver Stereotype in Society
• Breaking the Stereotype: Why Urban Aboriginals Score Highly on Happiness Measures
• An Analysis of the Macho-Men Stereotype Plaguing Today’s Man
• The Problems of the Aboriginal People and the Average Media Stereotype
• How Racialized Stereotypes Determine a Community’s Value?
• What Is a Cultural Stereotype?
• How Advertising Reinforces Gender Stereotypes?
• How Stereotypes for Women Came to Be?
• How Do Contemporary Toys Enforce Gender Stereotypes?
• What Are Social Stereotypes?
• Are Continuum Beliefs About Psychotic Symptoms Associated With Stereotypes About Schizophrenia?
• How Do Hispanic Bilinguals’ Cultural Stereotypes Shape Advertising Persuasiveness?
• How Do Racialized Stereotypes Determine a Community’s Value?
• How Does Drag Affect Stereotypes About Gay Men?
• How Refugee’s Stereotypes Toward Host Society Members Predict Acculturation Orientations?
• Why Are Female Stereotypes in Advertising Still Effective?
• Can Gender Quotas Break Down Negative Stereotypes?
• Does Mainstream Media Have a Duty to Challenge Gender Stereotypes?
• How Have Gender Stereotypes Always Been a Part of Society?
• How Do Attitudes and Stereotypes Develop?
• Are Sexist Attitudes and Gender Stereotypes Linked?
• Are Gender Stereotypes Perpetuated in Children’s Magazines?
• What Are Gender Stereotypes?
• How Gender Stereotypes Warp Our View of Depression?
• How Are Class Stereotypes Maintained in the Press?
• How Can Bob Dylan and Wolf Biermann Be Employed to Make Students Aware of Stereotypes and Prejudice?
• How Do Racial Stereotypes Affect Society?
• How Did Photography Reflect the Values and Stereotypes That Underlay European Colonialism?
• How Can Stereotypes Contribute to Inequality?
• What Makes People Have Certain Stereotypes?
• How Can Stereotypes Negatively Affect Listening?
• Why Are Stereotypes Dangerous and What Can Be Done to Reduce Them?
• How Are Stereotypes Used to Racially Profile People?
• How American Minorities Are Stereotypes in American Drama Series?
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What is Stereotype? Definition, Usage, and Literary Examples

Stereotype definition.

A stereotype (STEH-ree-oh-tiep) is a generalized belief about a group of people. These generalizations are assumed to be true about every person within the group and typically revolve around traits, beliefs, behaviors, and skills.

Stereotypes play a significant role in social categorization, or the way people organize themselves and others into groups. For example, cats are widely considered aloof and independent, while dogs are judged to be sociable and affectionate. These generalizations are stereotypes.

Characteristics of Stereotypes

Stereotypes can be explicit or implicit. People are aware of explicit stereotypes and acknowledge that they use them to judge or categorize others. One example is the way that different generations perceive and discuss each other. For older generations, the common stereotype is that they are out of touch and technologically inept. Younger generations, on the other hand, are characterized as cynical or unmotivated.

Implicit stereotypes are unconscious, meaning people are not aware of making or using these generalizations. Consider this common riddle: A father and son are in a car accident, and they are rushed to the hospital. The boy is taken into surgery, where the doctor sees him and proclaims “I can’t operate on him. This is my son.” Many people don’t come to the right answer—that the boy’s mother is the surgeon—because unconscious stereotyping has them envision the doctor as a man.

Stereotypes can also be positive or negative. Take these examples:

• Americans are loud and arrogant.
• Women are warm and maternal.

The first example is clearly derogatory and rude. The second example evaluates women in a positive light, associating them with favorable traits. However, while the generalizations in that example seem complimentary, they can be just as inaccurate or harmful as any other stereotype. This is because stereotypes hold an entire group to one standard or expectation, dismissing the diversity within groups. In fact, positive stereotypes often correspond with negative ones. For example, the notion that women are warm and maternal corresponds with the idea that women are overly emotional and weak.

How Stereotypes Affect Readers

Authors should be careful about writing with stereotypes, as characterization based on stereotypes can seem lazy. People are largely aware of cultural and social generalizations, and using them can play into expectations, which is unimaginative and cliché . It can also imply a lack of effort or empathy.

Stereotypes are often flawed or flat-out wrong, and these inaccuracies can reinforce prejudiced ideas about a group. Because stereotypes are commonly based on sexism, racism, ableism, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination, they can be hurtful and offensive. In addition to boring readers, stereotypes can alienate them too.

Consider older books written in historical periods with different cultural values and scientific understandings. Ideas that were once commonly accepted now seem ignorant or prejudiced, causing modern audiences to read these texts more critically. Readers of Rudyard Kipling must confront his staunch imperialism, for example, as his works often glorify British colonialism and uses ethnic stereotypes that minimize the diversity and complexity of Asian cultures.

Why Writers Use Stereotypes

Though there are many pitfalls to using stereotypes, they can be a powerful literary tool.

Generalizations are a fact of life. They exist in people, and so they affect our cultures and social systems, from government to education. Writers can use stereotypes in the process of worldbuilding to create a more complex, authentic setting , or they can use them to provide conflict that the protagonist must confront.

Some genres, particularly science fiction and fantasy , use stereotypes to establish new worlds, cultures, and communities. While this quickly familiarizes readers with a wholly unfamiliar setting, it often results in homogenization that some criticize as bland, uncreative, and unrealistic. The elves in J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels are one such example.

Stereotypes can also figure into characterization. We all carry preconceived notions, and these assumptions can be incorporated into a character’s beliefs or worldview, giving them greater nuance. These stereotypes may exist within the protagonist as something they must overcome, or they may exist in the antagonist to showcase how they act as a foil to the main character

There’s also the matter of stock characters. These stereotypical characters appear in stories so frequently that readers immediately recognize their personality traits and narrative purpose. Authors use them to avoid writing unnecessary backstory or character development and to evoke a certain effect, usually comedy.

Writers can also subvert stereotypes to make a point or provide social commentary. Breaking a stereotype can criticize damaging or dismissive generalizations by providing a more accurate and nuanced alternative. Also, a character with highly exaggerated prejudices can emphasize the absurdity or injustice of a certain stereotype.

Examples of Stereotypes in Literature

1. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale is a feminist dystopian novel about a world in crisis. The planet has been devastated by some environmental catastrophe, and an authoritarian regime has overthrown the US government to establish a theocratic state called Gilead. This new government enforces a highly stratified society that subjugates women while placing men at the top of the hierarchy. Women are stripped of their rights, including physical autonomy and self-determination. The text follows protagonist Offred as she grapples with this new world order founded on misogyny and gender inequality, providing critical commentary on the sexism that perpetuates gender roles and stereotypes in our own society.

2. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie

This classic children’s book demonstrates how literature is a product of its time—and can age poorly as a consequence. This series of semiautobiographical novels depicts Laura Ingalls’s childhood in the American Midwest. The third book, Little House on the Prairie , follows the Ingalls family as they move from Wisconsin to Kansas, near the Osage tribe. The characters express a range of opinions about Native Americans: Ma is scared of them, while other settlers are outright hostile, with one asserting, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

These reactions reflect attitudes at the time, but the novel has been also criticized for problematic language in the prose . In the original text, for example, Pa wants to move somewhere “there were no people. Only Indians.” This implies that Native Americans are not people, a sentiment that dehumanizes them and reinforces white superiority. Ingalls’s publisher later changed the line to read “no settlers.”

3. Amy Waldman, The Submission

Set two years after the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, this novel follows a controversy that unfolds after a Muslim American wins a blind Ground Zero memorial design competition. The novel delves into the characters’ personal lives to challenge the stereotypes about gender, ethnicity, and immigration that prevailed during this period of increased racism and xenophobia. This is best exemplified by Mohammad “Mo” Kahn, the main protagonist and winner of the contest.

Once his ethnic heritage hits the tabloids, Mo is subjected to a range of ethnic stereotypes. For example, a news article uses a photo of an Arabic man in a balaclava, rather than a picture of Mo, to play on stereotypes about radical Islamic terrorists. This is just one of many incorrect generalizations applied to Mo, and the novel explores how these stereotypes conflict with Mo’s true identity and complicate his life.

4. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The Harry Potter series is mostly set at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The student body is divided into four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Hogwarts students are said to embody virtues that reflect their house; Gryffindors are brave, daring, and chivalrous, for example, while Slytherins are cunning, ambitious, and shrewd. These generalizations fuel house rivalries, particularly between Gryffindors and Slytherins, whose stereotypical traits are structured as foils in the text.

Further Resources on Stereotypes

Looking for stories that break pervasive stereotypes? Check out this list of 13 books compiled by Atlassian.

This lesson plan provides tips for teaching students about stereotypes in literature.

Related Terms

• Characterization
• Stock Character

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Mind & Body Articles & More

How to beat stereotypes by seeing people as individuals, we often judge people by their group membership—but research suggests other ways to see each other..

In 1983, a white man walked into an all-white music venue in Frederick, Maryland, and he noticed that a black man was playing in an otherwise all-white country band.

He approached the musician and told him, “I really like y’all’s music. This is the first time I ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis.” The piano player, a musician named Daryl Davis, replied that Jerry Lee Lewis was inspired by black musicians.

The man didn’t believe Davis, but liked his music so much he was willing to have a drink with Davis and talk about their shared love of piano music. He told Davis he had never had a drink with a black man before. Davis wanted to know why, and that’s when the man admitted he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

Despite being a Klansman, the man became a regular at Davis’s performances, because he learned to see him as a great individual piano player, rather than through the lens of group stereotypes. Ultimately, Davis discovered, the man was kicked out of the local KKK chapter.

This story reveals a crucial skill for building bridges between different kinds of people: focusing on individual characteristics rather than group identity. The encounter set Davis off on a crusade—he went on to befriend and convince over 200 members of the KKK to leave the organization. The entire effort was primarily based on Davis’s ability to connect with them one on one.

It might seem hard to argue with the idea that we should focus on what individuals say and do and believe, instead of unthinkingly inferring those things from their group membership—but, in fact, we use group affiliation to evaluate individuals all the time. What psychological forces drive us to do that, even when stereotyping other people is against our values? How can we teach ourselves to overlook group stereotypes and instead listen to individual stories?

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We can find some answers in the research—and today we can see those scientific insights being put to the real-world test by bridge-building organizations around the United States.

Why we stereotype

Psychologists call our mental shortcuts “heuristics”—and we need them to help our brains navigate the world. If you see a creature with feathers sitting on a tree branch, it probably does fly and eat worms. If you are planning a trip to upstate New York in the winter, it’s not a bad idea to bring snow boots.

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But heuristics can lead us to make potentially damaging assumptions about other people. Racial stereotyping, for instance, comes from the belief that membership in a racial group defines someone on a range of characteristics, including their behavior. This idea that group membership determines innate qualities is called “essentialism.”

Racial segregation results from a widespread belief in racial essentialism. Many whites in the Jim Crow South, for instance, falsely believed that skin color and race determined someone’s character, behavior, and intelligence.

That’s why the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., famously said during his 1963 speech at the March on Washington that he dreamed that his “four little children will one day live in a world where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” King was arguing that his children should be evaluated as individuals rather than as archetypes of a racial group. If we want to understand people, we need focus on individual words and actions, not their group identity.

But how? If stereotyping is so powerful that it can serve as the basis of an entire social system that required a Civil Rights movement to overturn, what can we do as individuals to see other people without prejudice?

Deflating essentialism

That’s a question social scientists have been tackling for a long time.

Recently, Skidmore College psychologist Leigh Wilton was part of a team that tested out two different approaches to tackling essentialism. In one study, they gave participants a pair of readings (in addition to a control-condition statement) promoting a diversity component of a potential university strategic plan.

One reading emphasized the distinctiveness of different groups with sentences like this one:

Each group has its own talents, as well as its own problems, and by acknowledging both these strengths and weaknesses, we validate the identity of each group and we recognize its existence and its importance to the social fabric.

The second highlighted individual characteristics: “We must look beyond skin color and understand the person within, to see each person as an individual who is part of the larger group.”

Participants were then asked to complete a survey based on the Race Essentialism Scale , which seeks to assess “participants’ agreement with the view that race is unchangeable and biologically determined.”

The results? Participants who read the passage that emphasized group differences were more likely to report beliefs in race essentialism than those who got the individual-oriented message. In other words, focusing on individuals helped the participants see people from different cultures as individuals, rather than as groups with essential characteristics.

Wilton emphasizes that this doesn’t mean that it’s never useful to think in terms of groups. However, we need to be aware that this way of thinking does lead to more essentialist beliefs. “Challenges come up when people think about people in terms of their group identity, or they make assumptions about people…based on what they look like, or what their background is,” she explains.

Imagining vegetables

Essentialism isn’t the only force that prevents us from seeing people as individuals.

Many of our social divisions stem from reacting to out-groups—people who do not belong to the social group we psychologically identify with—differently than we respond to our in-groups. Racial essentialism, for instance, can be driven by the belief that people from different racial groups have essential and categorical differences from us that make our co-existence difficult or impossible.

This reaction against out-groups is not always conscious or intentional. Research shows, for instance, that when people see someone from another group, their brains may automatically respond as if they’re confronting a physical threat. We quickly place people into a group category without even really thinking about it.

“When you simply categorize the person, you’re not attributing much of a mind to them ”

One neuroscience study performed by Princeton psychologist Susan Fiske found that when white participants saw photos of black faces and had two seconds to judge whether the people in these photographs were over the age of 21, they showed activity in the area of the brain called the amygdala, which indicates a high level of alertness and emotional arousal. In other words, they saw the face as a threat.

But the same study found that there was an easy way to maneuver around this automatic response. 

In some cases, Fiske’s team asked the white participants to judge what sort of vegetable the people in the photos would prefer to eat. In those cases—when they were prompted to see the people as individuals, with their own tastes and preferences—the amygdala activity looked the same as when the participants saw white faces, suggesting that they were able to individuate—see the faces as individuals—rather than quickly group them into a category and see them as a threat.

Fiske explains that people often tend to quickly categorize people into group categories, but that learning more about a person can help you individuate them by thinking about what goes on in their individual mind.

“When you simply categorize the person, you’re not attributing much of a mind to them,” she says. “But when you’re trying to figure out what kind of human being they are, what their dispositions are, you have to think about their mind.”

By focusing on the characteristics of individuals, rather than their group identity, we can maneuver around segregating perceptions of out-groups that drive us apart rather than bring us together.

“What’s good about the vegetable task is it creates the most minimal possible goal it would take to get you to go beyond the category,” Fiske says.

Building empathy through storytelling

Late last year, a group of kids from University Heights High School in New York City walked into a giant inflatable room and sat down to talk to a group of students sitting almost 700 miles away.

More on Healing Divisions

Download a guide on how to bridge differences by focusing on individuality, not group identity.

Jamil Zaki argues that we need empathy in a time of division .

Joshua Greene explores how to close the gap between "us" and "them."

Zaid Jilani explores what makes for good interactions between groups .

Zaid Jilani suggests ways to find what Americans have in common .

On the other side of the screen were students from Floyd Central High School in Eastern Kentucky, a mining region that couldn’t look more different than the South Bronx.

Yet the two groups of students quickly became friends, learning that there isn’t as much separating them—despite deep demographic, cultural, and political differences—as you might expect.

The project was put together by Narrative 4 , an organization that works around the world to connect diverse groups of people through sharing their personal stories.

“We got these kids sort of hooked on each other through story exchange,” Lee Keylock, director of global programs at Narrative 4, told Greater Good . “It breaks down all these stereotypes and perceived biases.”

The foundation of libertarian-conservative billionaire Charles Koch funded part of the initiative . A classroom in Tampico, Mexico, also participated, making the project international.

What makes us unique?

Like many bridge-building organizations, Narrative 4 strategically avoids discussing issues that might trigger negative intergroup dynamics.

Keylock explains that the students at University Heights come from many different faith backgrounds, as opposed to the more homogenous Catholic school in Tampico. So Narrative 4 advises the participants to avoid starting conversations by immediately asking about their opposite’s faith background—which would lump them into a group category—but instead to ask them to tell stories about what they personally believe.

“So, they already meet each other on a very personal plane,” Keylock says, “before they start talking about some of these big issues.”

The Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom takes a similar approach, working to build bonds between women in these two faith communities: Muslim and Jewish. For instance, the organization instructs participants to avoid discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—a polarizing issue that often quickly divides Muslims and Jews—until they have known each other for an entire year. This allows the women to see each other as individuals rather than as partisan representatives of one side of a conflict.

The People’s Supper applies this insight to fostering ties between many different kinds of Americans. It has hosted over 900 dinners across the country, bringing together participants from diverse social and political backgrounds to talk about themselves and build companionship with people on the other side of major divides. “For us, the starting place is to not talk about politics,” Lennon Flowers, who helped launch the project, told Greater Good last year. “So often our conversations are limited to our positions, rather than our stories, rather than who we are.”

Through both research and the experience of practitioners in the field, we know that focusing on individual characteristics rather than group identity can be a powerful bridge-building tool.

Just ask Gary Nigh, a former KKK leader who was convinced by Davis to leave the organization. In a documentary called Accidental Courtesy , which features Davis’s anti-racist work, interviewers asked Nigh to explain his transformation. He gestured at Davis and replied: “I met him.”

About the Author

Zaid Jilani

Zaid Jilani is Greater Good 's Bridging Differences Writing Fellow. A journalist originally from Atlanta, he has worked as a reporter for The Intercept and as a reporter-blogger for ThinkProgress, United Republic, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and Alternet .

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Stereotypes — Informative Speech About Stereotyping

Informative Speech About Stereotyping

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How to Write a Narrative Essay | Example & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

A narrative essay tells a story. In most cases, this is a story about a personal experience you had. This type of essay , along with the descriptive essay , allows you to get personal and creative, unlike most academic writing .

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Table of contents

What is a narrative essay for, choosing a topic, interactive example of a narrative essay, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about narrative essays.

When assigned a narrative essay, you might find yourself wondering: Why does my teacher want to hear this story? Topics for narrative essays can range from the important to the trivial. Usually the point is not so much the story itself, but the way you tell it.

A narrative essay is a way of testing your ability to tell a story in a clear and interesting way. You’re expected to think about where your story begins and ends, and how to convey it with eye-catching language and a satisfying pace.

These skills are quite different from those needed for formal academic writing. For instance, in a narrative essay the use of the first person (“I”) is encouraged, as is the use of figurative language, dialogue, and suspense.

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Narrative essay assignments vary widely in the amount of direction you’re given about your topic. You may be assigned quite a specific topic or choice of topics to work with.

• Write a story about your first day of school.
• Write a story about your favorite holiday destination.

You may also be given prompts that leave you a much wider choice of topic.

• Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself.
• Write about an achievement you are proud of. What did you accomplish, and how?

In these cases, you might have to think harder to decide what story you want to tell. The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to talk about a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.

For example, a trip where everything went according to plan makes for a less interesting story than one where something unexpected happened that you then had to respond to. Choose an experience that might surprise the reader or teach them something.

Narrative essays in college applications

When applying for college , you might be asked to write a narrative essay that expresses something about your personal qualities.

For example, this application prompt from Common App requires you to respond with a narrative essay.

In this context, choose a story that is not only interesting but also expresses the qualities the prompt is looking for—here, resilience and the ability to learn from failure—and frame the story in a way that emphasizes these qualities.

An example of a short narrative essay, responding to the prompt “Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself,” is shown below.

Hover over different parts of the text to see how the structure works.

Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and math over the humanities. My instinct was always to think of these subjects as more solid and serious than classes like English. If there was no right answer, I thought, why bother? But recently I had an experience that taught me my academic interests are more flexible than I had thought: I took my first philosophy class.

Before I entered the classroom, I was skeptical. I waited outside with the other students and wondered what exactly philosophy would involve—I really had no idea. I imagined something pretty abstract: long, stilted conversations pondering the meaning of life. But what I got was something quite different.

A young man in jeans, Mr. Jones—“but you can call me Rob”—was far from the white-haired, buttoned-up old man I had half-expected. And rather than pulling us into pedantic arguments about obscure philosophical points, Rob engaged us on our level. To talk free will, we looked at our own choices. To talk ethics, we looked at dilemmas we had faced ourselves. By the end of class, I’d discovered that questions with no right answer can turn out to be the most interesting ones.

The experience has taught me to look at things a little more “philosophically”—and not just because it was a philosophy class! I learned that if I let go of my preconceptions, I can actually get a lot out of subjects I was previously dismissive of. The class taught me—in more ways than one—to look at things with an open mind.

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If you’re not given much guidance on what your narrative essay should be about, consider the context and scope of the assignment. What kind of story is relevant, interesting, and possible to tell within the word count?

The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to reflect on a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.

Don’t worry too much if your topic seems unoriginal. The point of a narrative essay is how you tell the story and the point you make with it, not the subject of the story itself.

Narrative essays are usually assigned as writing exercises at high school or in university composition classes. They may also form part of a university application.

When you are prompted to tell a story about your own life or experiences, a narrative essay is usually the right response.

The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.

Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.

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Narrative Essay

Narrative Essay Examples

10+ Interesting Narrative Essay Examples Plus Writing Tips!

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Narrative Essay - A Complete Writing Guide with Examples

Writing a Personal Narrative Essay: Everything You Need to Know

Best Narrative Essay Topics 2023 for Students

Crafting a Winning Narrative Essay Outline: A Step-by-Step Guide

Many students struggle with crafting engaging and impactful narrative essays. They often find it challenging to weave their personal experiences into coherent and compelling stories.

If you’re having a hard time, don't worry! 

We’ve compiled a range of narrative essay examples that will serve as helpful tools for you to get started. These examples will provide a clear path for crafting engaging and powerful narrative essays.

So, keep reading and find our expertly written examples!

• 1. Narrative Essay Definition
• 2. Narrative Essay Examples
• 3. Narrative Essay Examples for Students
• 4. Narrative Essay Topics
• 5. Narrative Essay Writing Tips

Narrative Essay Definition

Writing a narrative essay is a unique form of storytelling that revolves around personal experiences, aiming to immerse the reader in the author's world. It's a piece of writing that delves into the depths of thoughts and feelings. 

In a narrative essay, life experiences take center stage, serving as the main substance of the story. It's a powerful tool for writers to convey a personal journey, turning experiences into a captivating tale. This form of storytelling is an artful display of emotions intended to engage readers, leaving the reader feeling like they are a part of the story.

By focusing on a specific theme, event, emotions, and reflections, a narrative essay weaves a storyline that leads the reader through the author's experiences. 

The Essentials of Narrative Essays

Let's start with the basics. The four types of essays are argumentative essays , descriptive essays , expository essays , and narrative essays.

The goal of a narrative essay is to tell a compelling tale from one person's perspective. A narrative essay uses all components you’d find in a typical story, such as a beginning, middle, and conclusion, as well as plot, characters, setting, and climax.

The narrative essay's goal is the plot, which should be detailed enough to reach a climax. Here's how it works:

• It's usually presented in chronological order.
• It has a function. This is typically evident in the thesis statement's opening paragraph.
• It may include speech.
• It's told with sensory details and vivid language, drawing the reader in. All of these elements are connected to the writer's major argument in some way.

Before writing your essay, make sure you go through a sufficient number of narrative essay examples. These examples will help you in knowing the dos and don’ts of a good narrative essay.

It is always a better option to have some sense of direction before you start anything. Below, you can find important details and a bunch of narrative essay examples. These examples will also help you build your content according to the format. 

Here is a how to start a narrative essay example:

Sample Narrative Essay

The examples inform the readers about the writing style and structure of the narration. The essay below will help you understand how to create a story and build this type of essay in no time.

Here is another narrative essay examples 500 words:

Narrative Essay Examples for Students

Narrative essays offer students a platform to express their experiences and creativity. These examples show how to effectively structure and present personal stories for education.

Here are some helpful narrative essay examples:

Narrative Essay Examples Middle School

Narrative Essay Examples for Grade 7

Narrative Essay Examples for Grade 8

Grade 11 Narrative Essay Examples

Narrative Essay Example For High School

Narrative Essay Example For College

Personal Narrative Essay Example

Descriptive Narrative Essay Example

3rd Person Narrative Essay Example

Narrative Essay Topics

Here are some narrative essay topics to help you get started with your narrative essay writing.

• When I got my first bunny
• When I moved to Canada
• I haven’t experienced this freezing temperature ever before
• The moment I won the basketball finale
• A memorable day at the museum
• How I talk to my parrot
• The day I saw the death
• When I finally rebelled against my professor

Need more topics? Check out these extensive narrative essay topics to get creative ideas!

Narrative Essay Writing Tips

Narrative essays give you the freedom to be creative, but it can be tough to make yours special. Use these tips to make your story interesting:

• Share your story from a personal viewpoint, engaging the reader with your experiences.
• Use vivid descriptions to paint a clear picture of the setting, characters, and emotions involved.
• Organize events in chronological order for a smooth and understandable narrative.
• Bring characters to life through their actions, dialogue, and personalities.
• Employ dialogue sparingly to add realism and progression to the narrative.
• Engage readers by evoking emotions through your storytelling.
• End with reflection or a lesson learned from the experience, providing insight.

Now you have essay examples and tips to help you get started, you have a solid starting point for crafting compelling narrative essays.

However, if storytelling isn't your forte, you can always turn to our essay writing service for help.

Our writers are specialists that can tackle any type of essay with great skill. With their experience, you get a top-quality, 100% plagiarism free essay everytime.

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Lynne Reid Banks, Author of ‘The Indian in the Cupboard,’ Dies at 94

She explored the struggles of young women in the novel “The L-Shaped Room” but found her biggest success with a children’s book about a magical cupboard.

By Rebecca Chace

Lynne Reid Banks, a versatile British author who began her writing career with the best-selling feminist novel “The L-Shaped Room” but found her biggest success with the popular children’s book “The Indian in the Cupboard,” died on Thursday in Surrey, England. She was 94.

Her death, at a care facility, was caused by cancer, said James Wills, her literary agent.

Ms. Banks was part of a generation of writers, including Shelagh Delaney and Margaret Drabble , that emerged in postwar Britain and whose books explored the struggles of young women seeking personal and financial independence, in sharp contrast to the contemporaneous “ angry young men” literary movement defined by John Osborne and Kingsley Amis .

Over Ms. Banks’s long career, her character portrayals were often called insensitive and her language offensive, particularly in her two best-known works. A complicated, sometimes contradictory figure, she became increasingly unrepentant about her firmly held opinions.

“The L-Shaped Room” (1960), lauded by critics as a second-wave feminist novel, tells the story of an unmarried secretary whose conservative, middle-class father throws her out of their home when she tells him she’s pregnant. Rather than reach out to the father of the child, she rents a small L-shaped room at the top of a rooming house in London and becomes part of an improvised family of fellow boarders, including a Caribbean-born jazz musician. Class, race, sexism and the danger of illegal abortions are all central to the plot.

Ms. Banks didn’t consider herself a feminist when she wrote the book; as a young woman coming of age in the 1950s, she said, she thought that men were superior.

But she soon changed her mind. “What a joke,” she told the BBC program “Bookclub” in 2010. “I mean, I don’t believe that anymore. I think women are infinitely the superior sex and that men are probably the most dangerous creatures on the planet.”

Ms. Banks came to regret the racial tropes used in her portrayal of the Caribbean housemate in “The L-Shaped Room,” acknowledging that racism had permeated her narrative. “The prejudices existed, and they came out in this book, and it’s shame-making, but there they were,” she told the BBC. “They were absolutely part of the atmosphere.”

The novel became an immediate best seller in Britain and was made into a film, released in the United States in 1963, which starred Leslie Caron, who was nominated for an Oscar for best actress.

After “The Indian in the Cupboard” was published in 1980, The New York Times hailed it as the best novel of the year for children. Ms. Banks wrote four sequels.

The first book in the series begins when a boy, Omri, is given an old medicine cabinet with magical properties: When he places plastic action figures inside, they come alive. The first toy he brings to life is a Native American named Little Bear — the “Indian” of the title. One of Omri’s friends places his toy cowboy in the cabinet, and a well-worn conflict is set in motion.

Although the purported message to young readers was the importance of tolerance and respect for other cultures, Ms. Banks was later accused of perpetuating stereotypes. (Little Bear speaks in a dialect of broken English, and the cowboy is a laconic man who likes his whiskey.)

By the fourth book, “The Mystery of the Cupboard” (1993), critics had grown impatient with the clichéd characters that would step out of the magic cupboard. “Through its innocent-looking mirrored door march a succession of plucky, albeit creaky cultural stereotypes, ever predictable and true to the dictates of their sex, ethnic group or time,” the fiction writer Michael Dorris wrote in The New York Times Book Review.

The American Indian Library Association in 1991 listed “The Indian in the Cupboard” series among the “titles to avoid,” and a school board in British Columbia temporarily removed the first book from its libraries in 1992, citing “offensive treatment of native peoples.”

Still, the series remained popular, and “The Indian in the Cupboard” was adapted into a 1995 film directed by Frank Oz.

Lynne Reid Banks was born in London on July 31, 1929. She was the only child of James and Muriel (Reid) Banks. Her father, who was Scottish, was a doctor; her mother, known as Pat, who was Irish, was an actress.

As a child during World War II, Lynne was evacuated with her mother to Canada, where they settled in Saskatchewan. It was a mostly happy time, and the human cost of the war became clear only when she returned to London at 15.

“I found my city in ruins,” she said in an interview for the reference work “Authors and Artists for Young Adults.” When she learned about the wartime hardships that the rest of her family had endured, she was horrified and ashamed. “I felt like a deserter,” she said.

She first pursued a career as an actress, studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and working in repertory theater. She also began writing plays. In 1955, she became one of the first female television reporters in England, working for Independent Television News (later ITV). One day, she was asked to try out a new kind of typewriter in the newsroom. One sentence led to another, and she realized that she was writing in the voice of a woman who was pregnant, unmarried and on her own. These random first sentences became the seeds of “The L-shaped Room.”

“I didn’t know I had a book,” she later told the BBC . “I knew I had a situation.”

The success of the novel gave her the freedom to write full time, and she quit her television job. But her life took another turn when she met and married Chaim Stephenson, a sculptor, and moved to Israel to join him on a kibbutz.

The move led her mother to accuse her of wasting her talent and placing herself in a dangerous and “soul-stunting” situation, Ms. Banks wrote in The Guardian in 2017. But she loved her adopted country, and she taught English and continued to write while raising three sons, until the family moved back to England in 1971.

Ms. Banks wrote two sequels to “The L-Shaped Room” — “The Backward Shadow” (1970) and “Two Is Lonely” (1974) — as well as two books on the Brontë sisters: “Dark Quartet: The Story of the Brontës” (1976) and “Path to the Silent Country: Charlotte Brontë’s Years of Fame” (1977).

She began writing books for children and young adults in the 1970s, incorporating elements of magic and fantasy that would find full expression in “The Indian in the Cupboard.” She wrote more than 45 books for adults and children altogether, many with Jewish themes, as well as 13 plays produced for radio and theater.

The challenges of single motherhood was a theme Ms. Banks returned to in 2014 in “Uprooted: A Canadian War Story,” a young adult novel based on the years that she and her mother spent in Canada during the war.

She is survived by three sons, Adiel, Gillon and Omri Stephenson, and three grandchildren. Her husband died in 2016.

Ms. Banks remained productive in her later years. “It’s great being old,” she wrote in The Guardian in 2017, in an essay on the advantages of aging. “I can be eccentric, self-indulgent — even offensive.”

Indeed, at the age of 85, she touched off another literary furor when she wrote a letter objecting to The Guardian’s decision to award its children’s fiction prize to David Almond for his book “A Song for Ella Grey” (2015), writing that a book with “lesbian sex,” as well as swearing and drinking, was not appropriate for children.

A predictable outcry in response to her letter followed. “Although I’m still on the outs with modern life,” she wrote, “being old means I’ve stopped minding what people think of my opinions.”

Sofia Poznansky contributed reporting,

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