Page 81 - SpringBoard_Writing_Workshop_Grade8_Flipbook

Writing Workshop 7 (continued)
My Notes
2. What elements are common to good stories? Answers might include:
• The story has a focus and a point.
• The story is funny or evokes emotion.
• The reader can follow the action; it has a clear beginning, middle, and end.
• The setting seems realistic so you feel like you are there.
• The reader can relate to how the people in the story feel.
• The story reflects on the importance of, or reasons for, actions and
consequences.
During Reading
3. Good storytelling engages the audience by presenting vivid settings, interesting characters, and carefully developed events. As you read the sample below, look for elements of a good narrative. Mark the text by putting a check mark in the margin when you find the element, and write the name of the element beside the check mark.
SAMPLE TEXT
Universities sometimes ask professors to give a “last lecture,” imagining what wisdom they would try to impart if they knew they were making their last public speech. When Carnegie Mellon asked Professor Randy Pausch to give such a lecture, he had already been diagnosed with terminal cancer and given months to live. He delivered the lecture, knowing that his three very young children, two of whom would very likely have no memories of him, would someday watch the videotape. He called the lecture, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.”
“Getting to”
Zero G
excerpt from The Last Lecture
by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow
It’s important to have specific dreams.
When I was in grade school, a lot of kids wanted to become astronauts. I was aware, from an early age, that NASA wouldn’t want me. I had heard that astronauts couldn’t have glasses. I was OK with that. I didn’t really want the whole astronaut gig. I just wanted the floating.
Turns out that NASA has a plane it uses to help astronauts acclimate to zero gravity. Everyone calls it “the Vomit Comet,” even though NASA refers to it as “The Weightless Wonder,” a public-relations gesture aimed at distracting attention from the obvious.
Whatever the plane is called, it’s a sensational piece of machinery. It does parabolic arcs, and at the top of each arc, you get about twenty-five seconds when you experience the rough equivalent of weightlessness. As the plane dives, you feel like you’re on a runaway roller coaster, but you’re suspended, flying around.
2 SpringBoard® Writing Workshop with Grammar Activities Grade 8
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