Page 92 - SpringBoard_Writing_Workshop_Grade7_Flipbook

10. Working with your teacher, draft the conclusion to your narrative. In
this last section, be sure to reflect on the significance of the story. The conclusion should follow from the events of the narrative, and it might
also link back to the story’s beginning. Sometimes the writer makes the significance of the event explicit, directly stating what was learned. Other writers choose to imply the significance, suggesting rather than stating what was learned. Still others leave the significance ambiguous or unclear.
Check Your Understanding
Now that the class essay has been drafted, refer to the Scoring Guide to help determine how well the essay meets the expectations. After looking at the Scoring Guide,
• In one color, highlight three vivid descriptions used to capture the setting, characters, or events in the narrative.
• With another color, highlight sentences that present the narrator’s reactions to the events and the experience.
• Underline a sentence or two that reflect on what was meaningful about this experience.
Revising for Language and Writer’s Craft Language Activity: Using Allusions to Other Texts
Allusions are references to other books, plays, movies, or other works of art. For example, a character could be described as a “real Scrooge” so that we know he is someone who has money but doesn’t spend it. This is an allusion to the character Scrooge from Charles Dickens’s story “A Christmas Carol.” It might also be an allusion to the cartoon character Uncle Scrooge, who is himself an allusion to Dickens’s character.
Here are some other allusions; see if you can identify the work that is being alluded to:
I wasn’t going to get fooled by that old Trojan Horse trick. (a mythological allusion)
I felt like David going up against Goliath. (a Biblical allusion)
As our teacher was about to step back into our history class, John yelled “The British are coming! The British are coming!” (an historical allusion)
You’re like the Scarecrow—you need somebody to give you a brain. (a popular culture allusion)
Samantha was Joey’s Great White Whale, and he pursued her with the passion of Ahab. (a literary allusion)
Dan Gutman, the author of our sample narrative, uses allusion as well. Here’s a line from “Let’s Go to the Videotape,” right after the ball is kicked into the basket:
“Everybody stopped. It was like the Day the Earth Stood Still.”
In the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still, alien spacecraft land in Washington, DC. The image that most viewers remember of the film is that landing, and all the people standing in silent amazement. For readers who are familiar with that film, or its remake from 2008, this gives a reference that helps us understand just how shocked Gutman’s classmates were. It also humorously compares his victory in gym class to a world-changing fictional event.
Writing Workshop 7 • Narrative Nonfiction 7
ACADEMIC VOCABULARY
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to a person, story, or event from another work of art.
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