Telling the Story from the Narrator’s Point of View

Units of Study Narrative Writing

Session 4

Connection

• Celebrate what you have accomplished so far
• It isn’t always easy to revisit tense life moments, but there is tremendous payoff in those moments of strong emotion and struggle/profound realization.

Learning Target

• I can tell the details of a story exactly the way the narrator perceived them at the moment.

Teaching

• When people talk about point of view, they are talking about the way the narrator tells the story through his or her eyes and other senses. The details of the scene need to be the ones that the narrator can take notice of — otherwise, they don’t belong there.
• Teacher demo of rewriting to clarify and strengthen the story’s point of view.

Active Engagement

• Listen to the short excerpt and think about where the point of view is not consistent.

Link

• Take just 30 seconds to decide on the powerful Small Moment story you’ll begin drafting in today’s workshop.
• If you need help getting a topic, revisit the chart “How to Write Powerful Personal Narratives.”

Chart - How to Write Powerful Personal Narratives

• Think of a person, place, or moment in your life (maybe a first or last time, or a time when you realized something) that matters, and write a story about it.
• Focus on one episode, write with detail (don’t summarize a stretch of time).
• Help readers picture the episode — a small action and exact dialogue.
• Climb inside the moment and write within the narrator’s point of view.

Link

• Think of a topic, and think about how you will begin your story. Then travel back in time, back into your point of view, at that time.
• As you write, zoom into the tiny details of the place — the ones you can see from exactly where you are in the story. What are you saying? What are you doing?

Conferring and Small-Group Work

• Self-assess your writing to make sure you are staying consistent in a first-person point of view by asking, “Is this something I really would have noticed?”
• Also ask, “Does this detail serve a purpose — does it help my reader to feel or imagine something that is important to my story?”

Conferring and Small-Group Work

• In the following passage, Jean Fritz describes her entrance into her home, describing the hallways in a way that reveals not only the hallway, but also what she wants her readers to understand about her as a person:

​

​

​

I flung open the iron gate and threw myself through the front door.

“I’m home!” I yelled.

​

Conferring and Small-Group Work

Then I remembered that it was Tuesday, the day my mother taught an English class at the Y.M.C.A. where my father was the director.

I stood in the hall, trying to catch my breath, and as always I began to feel small. It was a huge hall with ceilings so high it was as if they would have nothing to do with people. Certainly not with a mere child, not with me — the only child in the house. Once I asked my best friend, Andrea, if the hall made her feel little too. She said no. She was going to be a dancer and she loved space. She did a high kick to show how grand it was to have room.

​

Conferring and Small-Group Work

• Notice that the details in the passage are not about the setting, but about the writer’s actions. These are details that ring true and that the writer actually experienced. Those of us reading them are brought back to that moment, and to the feeling the author had at that moment.

​

​

​

Mid-Workshop Teaching

• Be picky about what details you will add into your writing.
• In my diapering story, I could have included a million different types of details, but I wanted to show that I was dying to see what was in the box, so those are the details I included.
• As you write, ask yourself what you most want to show your reader, then be picky about the details you include, adding only those that help your reader to experience what your story is really about.

Share

• Listen to/look at the short excerpt from Kei and notice where he includes details that he could not have known.
• How does his revision work better?
• Share a portion of your writing, choose a part where you’ve included sensory detail. Discuss with your partner which of your details do work and which don’t yet work.

Session 4 Homework

• Move forward with your personal narrative, or begin a new one.
• Strong writers are in the habit of editing as they write. As you draft in your notebook, always look back over your writing and ask, “Am I using my best spelling, punctuation, and grammar to make my writing as readable as possible?”
• Use this checklist/guideline to look over your prior drafts and do some editing.