Goodbye Persuasive Writing...Hello Narrative Writing!

5 Novembro 2018, 08:00 • Hilda Alexandra Prazeres Eusebio

Today, students finished presenting their analyses of Barack Obama's 2012 acceptance speech and...we finally moved on to Narrative Writing!

We simply looked at some of the basics today, such as that of VIEWPOINT:

  1. The First Person - the character tells the story, using the pronoun ‘I’. 
    • Six Different Viewpoint Structures of the First Person
      • Simple 
        • One character tells the story.
      • Simple Unreliable Narrator
        • One character tells the story but we don’t know if he is telling the truth.
        • Rashamon Effect 
          • This means multiple characters tell their version of the same events in the story.
        • Separate Multiple Viewpoints 
          • This means multiple characters tell the story using first person perspectives.
        • Sequential Multiple Viewpoints 
          • This means different characters tell the story from their perspective in a timeline or sequence. You may have Jane narrating events in January, Debbie narrating events from February to June, and Sarah in July.
        • First Person Omniscient 
          • The narrator is a character in the story, but also knows the thoughts and feelings of all the other characters.

  2. Second Person – The character tells the story using the pronoun ‘You’. 

    • This is the least common of all viewpoints used by authors. It is used to make the reader feel uncomfortable. The character is often alienated or in an altered state. The reader feels as if he or she is being compelled to listen. Children do not like second person.

  3. Third Person – The narrator tells the story using the pronouns ‘He’ and ‘She’. 

    • Three Viewpoint Structures in Third Person:

      • Subjective

        • This means the author focuses on one character and his thoughts and feelings. It is similar to simple first person but the author uses ‘he’ instead of ‘I’.  (You can also use separate multiple viewpoints and sequential multiple viewpoints in third person subjective.)

      • Omniscient 

        • This means the author gives readers a broad view of the story. The thoughts and feelings of many, or all, the characters are shown.

      • Objective

        • This means the author observes, and tells the story according to the actions of the characters. Readers have no idea what is going on inside the heads of the main characters.

Homework:

Students to read the text on pages 34-35 ("It was a beautiful, summer's day...") and fill in the diagram on the following page of the course book.