Finding Our Voices"Personal narratives allow you to share your life with others and vicariously experience the things that happen around you. Your job as a writer is to put the reader in the midst of the action letting him or her live through an experience. Although a great deal of writing has a thesis, stories are different. A good story creates a dramatic effect, makes us laugh, gives us pleasurable fright, and/or gets us on the edge of our seats. A story has done its job if we can say, "Yes, that captures what living with my father feels like," or "Yes, that’s what being cut from the football team felt like." (Canyon Crest Academy, San Dieguito USD)
In this unit, students will learn to develop their own personal narrative by first reading and analyzing literature ranging from ancient myths to more modern heroes. We will go in depth on plots, conflict, characterization, point of view as well as historical influence and significance of texts. After learning through the lens of some of the greats, we will begin to write our own narratives. |
Unit CalendarEach section is approximately two weeks long.
Part I: Mythology and the Short Story Part II: Aeneid, Characters and Historical Influence Part III: Modern Heroes and Contrasting Works Part IV: Writing and Revising Narratives AssignmentsLinksPurdue University's Online Writing Lab is a great resource for writers, including resources on prewriting, revision and formatting.
|