I realized the other day that I have not done a post on our narrative writing which we have been diligently working on for the past three weeks or so (give or take a million snow days!). Our stories are all centered around the conflict of a character getting "stuck" in a snow globe - appropriate I would say since that is a lot like how we have all been feeling recently ;0)
First, we created our characters and made their descriptions. The character could be made up or taken from a popular book series, movie, video game, actor/actress, TV star, holiday character, historical figure, etc. They then had the choice of either keeping the characters personality the same as the original author intended, or changing it to fit their story.
Next, we focused on our setting description by reading good settings and noticing how the authors SHOWED and did not TELL what the setting was. We noticed that they used lots of descriptive words, similes and metaphors, ACTION, and the five senses to convey a picture in the reader's head. We created our own five senses descriptions of our snow globe settings and then used these to create a setting paragraph to insert into our narratives.
We then brainstormed different ways our character got "stuck" in the snow globe - this constitutes our major conflict in our story. The next important part of the story was to outline how the character tries to get out - how that fails, how they try, how that fails ... etc. This will be the biggest part of our story (rising action), most commonly known as the PLOT.
Finally, we outlined what will eventually work to get our character out! (climax, falling action, and resolution). We also focused on what our character will learn, since as good author's, we will have a purpose for our story and a message (or theme) for our reader to learn.
Finally, we outlined what will eventually work to get our character out! (climax, falling action, and resolution). We also focused on what our character will learn, since as good author's, we will have a purpose for our story and a message (or theme) for our reader to learn.
The last couple of days, we have been identifying pop corn dialogue (dialogue that pops back and forth between characters that does not share description, action, feelings, or thoughts) and mixed dialogue (dialogue that is a good blend of both talking and description, action, feelings, and thoughts).
After analyzing good and bad examples, we have been practicing writing our own pop corn and mixed to add to our narratives.
After analyzing good and bad examples, we have been practicing writing our own pop corn and mixed to add to our narratives.
Finally, we have been working independently on the actual rough draft of our stories as we continue to add the different components of a narrative after each mini lesson. The students keep track of where they are at in the writing process as we move along - as you can see, most of us are working on our rough drafts.
In Mrs. Leach's class, the kids have been working on plotting coordinates on a graph. They were given common phrases which gave X and Y coordinates for the letters. First, they plotted the points to find their phrase half. Then, they had to find their partner who had the matching half of their phrase. Finally, the two partners worked together to design and decorate a background. These turned out super cute!