Page 91 - SpringBoard_Writing_Workshop_Grade7_Flipbook

Writing Workshop 7 (continued)
Beginning
Middle
Sets up the characters, setting, Explains a problem or challenge, Solves the problem, meets the and situation details main events challenge, learns a lesson
6 SpringBoard® Writing Workshop with Grammar Activities Grade 7
5. Brainstorm sensory details you might use to describe the setting and actions of the teacher’s narrative. Try to use all the senses, if possible (sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell).
6. An important technique writers use to express the significance of an experience is to state how they felt as events took place—a technique that also serves to characterize the narrator to the reader. Skim back through Gutman’s narrative, underlining spots where he relates his own feelings and thoughts at the time of the experience.
Drafting
7. With your classmates and your teacher, you will now use your notes and your reading of the sample text to draft the beginning of your narrative essay. Be sure to include the following elements:
• Context (the situation, characters, and/or conflict that is central to the story) • An engaging introductory technique (such as using dialogue or quotes) • Setting (when and where the story takes place)
To check your understanding: Look at the first paragraphs of Gutman’s narrative, and identify these elements. Then, as a class, draft the introduction to your class-constructed essay. Copy your draft on your own paper.
8. You have learned how to develop ideas in the middle of your narrative using • Vivid descriptions to present the setting and the events
• Organization to show shifts between events and the narrator’s reactions
to them
• Dialogue to help develop key scenes and to convey the attitude of the
narrator and other speakers
Another important technique for developing a narrative is characterization.
• Characterization refers to techniques for presenting and developing a character in a narrative. These techniques are used to present the narrator’s own actions, thoughts, and words and to introduce and describe other characters.
9. With your class, use information from your teacher to expand the description of characters in the middle of your class narrative.
End
What the Character Says or Thinks What Others Say About the Character What the Character Does Descriptions of the Character
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