NARRATIVE WRITING Honors Ninth Grade Mrs Ivey Narrative

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NARRATIVE WRITING Honors Ninth Grade Mrs. Ivey

NARRATIVE WRITING Honors Ninth Grade Mrs. Ivey

Narrative Writing—Your Goal • To write about something significant that has happened to you

Narrative Writing—Your Goal • To write about something significant that has happened to you • Do it in a way that allows your readers to relive the experience WITH you!

Narrative Writing—Keys for Success • Be Passionate—choose a memory that is anchored in your

Narrative Writing—Keys for Success • Be Passionate—choose a memory that is anchored in your memory…something that you still have strong feelings about • Include characters—make the people come to life through actions and words…SHOW how you and others react to the experience • Create memorable descriptions—use details that create pictures in a readers’ minds…use your senses to trigger your readers’ senses & action verbs

Narrative Writing—Choosing Topics • Initiation-think of a time when you had to “prove” yourself

Narrative Writing—Choosing Topics • Initiation-think of a time when you had to “prove” yourself • Loss-share a time you someone or something close to you • Run-in-consider an unavoidable confrontation with another person • Arrival-recall when you were the new kid on the block • Occasion-focus on a revealing get-together, celebration, holiday, party, or vacation

Narrative Example— “That Morning on the Prairie” On some beautiful early fall days out

Narrative Example— “That Morning on the Prairie” On some beautiful early fall days out here on the emerald cusp of the Great Plains, it’s hard to believe that we are where we are. Warm southern breezes swing up from Texas, the sun smiles with a gentleness not seen since June, and the spacious sky reigns over everything in azure glory. Early on exactly that kind of fall morning, I like to take my writing classes to a ghost town, Highland, Iowa, ten miles west and two south, as they say out here on the square-cut prairie. Likely as not, Highland fell victim to a century-old phenomenon in the Upper Midwest: 100 years ago, land was cut into 160 -acre chunks, most had homesteads, and small towns thrived. Today, when the portions are ten times bigger, fewer people live out here, and many towns have died out.

Narrative Example What’s left of Highland is a stand of pines circled around no

Narrative Example What’s left of Highland is a stand of pines circled around no more than twenty gravestones, and an old carved sign with hand-drawn figures detailing what was home for some people—a couple of Protestant churches, a couple of horse barns, and a blacksmith shop, little else. The town of Highland once flourished atop this swell of land at the confluence of a pair of nondescript gravel roads that still float out in four distinct directions like dusky ribbons over undulating prairie. But mostly, today, it’s gone. I like to take my students to Highland because what’s not there never fails to silence them. Maybe it’s the emaciated cemetery; maybe it’s the south wind’s low moan through that stand of pines, a sound you don’t hear often on the plains; maybe it’s some variant of culture shock—they stumble sleepily out of their cubicle dorm rooms and wake up suddenly in a place with no walls.

Narrative Example I’m lying. I know why they fall into psychic shock. It’s the

Narrative Example I’m lying. I know why they fall into psychic shock. It’s the sheer immensity of the land that unfurls before them, the horizon only seemingly there where earth weaves effortlessly into sky; it’s the vastness of rolling landscape William Cullen Bryant once claimed looked like an ocean stopped in time. It seems as if there’s nothing here, and everything, and that’s what stuns them into silence. That September morning, on those gravel roads, no cars passed. We were alone— 20 of us, all alone and vulnerable on a highground swath of prairie once called Highland, surrounded by nothing but startling openness. That’s where I was—and that’s where they were—on September 11, 2001. We left for Highland about the same time Mohamed Atta and his friends were commandeering American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center, so we knew absolutely nothing about what had happened until we returned. While the rest of the world watched in horror, my students, notebooks and pens in hand, looked over a landscape so immense only God could live there—and were silent.

Narrative Example They found it hard to leave, but then no one can stay

Narrative Example They found it hard to leave, but then no one can stay on retreat forever, so when we returned we heard the horrible news. All over campus and all over town, TVs blared. I like to think that maybe on our campus that morning my students were best prepared for the horror everyone felt— prepared, not by having been warned, but by having been awed. Every year it’s a joy for me to sit at Highland with a new group of students, all of us trying to define and describe the beauty of what seems characterless prairie. But this year our being there on the morning of September 11 was more than a joy—it was also a kind of blessing. ■

Narrative Example--Questions • 1. In the first three paragraphs of his essay, the writer

Narrative Example--Questions • 1. In the first three paragraphs of his essay, the writer describes Highland. Cite passages that do or do not help you see the setting. What mood or feeling does the description evoke? • 2. James C. Schaap, himself a writer, takes his students to Highland, where he asks them to use the setting as a writing prompt. What could students learn from the experience? Why? • 3. Schaap concludes the essay by saying that his students’ presence in Highland on September 11 was “a kind of blessing. ” What does he mean? • 4 What do you think the writer is trying to say in the last several lines?

Narrative HOW TO’s • Select a Topic ▫ Think about your own experiences ▫

Narrative HOW TO’s • Select a Topic ▫ Think about your own experiences ▫ Recall an experience that is important enough to share with others

Narrative HOW TO’s • Narrow your focus—Remember to WRITE SMALL! ▫ What is the

Narrative HOW TO’s • Narrow your focus—Remember to WRITE SMALL! ▫ What is the key moment? ▫ What led up this key moment? What resulted from it? ▫ What was really going on? ▫ How did others experience the event? ▫ What has time taught you about this experience? ▫ What would you have changed?

Narrative HOW TO’s • Determine your purpose and audience ▫ Decide why you are

Narrative HOW TO’s • Determine your purpose and audience ▫ Decide why you are telling your story and who might read it ▫ Purposes could include: �To entertain �To celebrate �To remind to warn to illustrate to gain sympathy

Narrative HOW TO’s • Gather Details— ▫ Use your graphic organizer to do this…

Narrative HOW TO’s • Gather Details— ▫ Use your graphic organizer to do this… ▫ Consider asking friends or relatives who were involved about the experience

Narrative HOW TO’s • Write your First Draft ▫ Use your graphic organizer to

Narrative HOW TO’s • Write your First Draft ▫ Use your graphic organizer to write your first draft ▫ Keep your specific focus and overall purpose in mind

Narrative HOW TO’s • BE SURE TO DO THE FOLLOWING THINGS: ▫ Set the

Narrative HOW TO’s • BE SURE TO DO THE FOLLOWING THINGS: ▫ Set the Stage!!! Show where things happened. Describe the atmosphere using the five senses and action verbs ▫ Include dialogue!!! Recall and create conversations. . ▫ Build the plot!!! Establish interest by having a conflict, building suspense, and showing the outcome

Narrative HOW TO’s ▫ Use transitions!!! Words like as, before, meanwhile, and later show

Narrative HOW TO’s ▫ Use transitions!!! Words like as, before, meanwhile, and later show where you are going ▫ Select verbs carefully!!! Use strong action verbs that SHOW what you did ▫ Express your feelings!!! In the conclusion, tell what you learned from the experience

Narrative HOW TO’s • Revise your writing--▫ Does your writing focus on a specific

Narrative HOW TO’s • Revise your writing--▫ Does your writing focus on a specific incident or event? ▫ Does the writing contain effective details, descriptions, and dialogue? ▫ Does the narrative effectively state or imply a theme, thesis, or point? ▫ Does the writing sound sincere and natural? ▫ Will readers appreciate the way the story is told?

Narrative HOW TO’s • Edit and Proofread • Prepare a final copy by typing

Narrative HOW TO’s • Edit and Proofread • Prepare a final copy by typing your paper ▫ One inch margins ▫ Name, Date Period, Narrative Writing on LEFT SIDE OF PAPER ▫ Center the title ▫ Double space the entire paper Information taken from The College Writer