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Lesson 5

We will finalize our personal narratives, which are based on our experiences or view of the world. We will emulate the storytelling approach used by an author we have read to recount and dramatize a meaningful experience from life (memoir) or to produce a narrative essay that communicates a view of the world.

Lesson Goals

Reading and Knowledge

  • Analyze Perspective: How well do I analyze relationships among an author’s perspective, personal experiences, and the themes developed in their stories, memoirs, or essays?

Writing

  • Organize Ideas: How well do I group and sequence narrative details, paragraphs, and sentences to produce a coherent and well-developed personal narrative?
  • Develop Ideas: How well do I use and develop my storyteller’s voice to recount a narrative based on my personal experiences or view of the world?
  • Use Language to Convey Meaning: How well do I use vivid, descriptive images and words and dialogue to recount and dramatize a narrative based on my personal experiences or view of the world?

Texts

Core

  • Unit Reader
    • “Points of Impact,” excerpt from Americana: Dispatches from the New Frontier, Hampton Sides, Anchor Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2004

Materials

Tools

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Write

We will reread our personal narratives. We will revise our personal narratives for style, engagement, and meaning.

Revision is the process of reseeing your work with fresh eyes. Revision is a challenge for all writers—the art of making writing better is hard work that can feel messy at times.

Reread your draft narrative, asking yourself the following questions:

  1. Does my personal narrative use details, sensory language, and images to engage the reader?

  2. Does my word choice reflect my unique style as an author?

  3. Have I communicated a theme that is related to my view of my life or of the world?

Use your reflections to make revisions to your story as needed.

Activity 2: Read – Write

We will edit and polish our personal narratives and prepare them to submit to our teacher.

Step 1

Review as a class the conventions associated with time frames in a narrative and the use of past and present verb tenses. Consider examples from stories you have read and how authors either maintain a consistent time frame and verb tense throughout a story or intentionally shift tenses for effect.

Read through your draft narrative, highlighting, underlining, or circling all of the verbs you have used in your sentences.

With a writing partner, review all of your verbs and determine if they are in past or present tense. If you have shifted tenses, be sure that you have intentionally done this for effect.

If not, correct the tense of any verbs that are in a different time frame so that your narrative is consistent throughout.

Step 2

Reread your draft personal narrative, focusing on how well the description and dialogue present your story in a dramatic and meaningful way. Identify places where word choices or dialogue might be improved.

Revise your personal narrative so that it tells your story in the most interesting and dramatic way possible. Think about how your own narrative “voice” comes through, and also think about the voices of others in the story you are telling. How might you bring their words and voices to life when presenting your story orally?

Create a final reading draft of your narrative, and think about how you can present it to other students in a way that is dramatic and meaningful. Recall how Obama has used various voices to tell his recollected story during his Cambridge Library reading.

Activity 3: Present

We will read our personal narratives to a small group of other students, focusing on how to use dialogue and interpretive reading voices to present our story in a dramatic and meaningful way.

As directed by your teacher, join a small group of students for a dramatic reading of your personal narrative. In turn, introduce your story much as Barack Obama does before his reading; then, do a dramatic reading in which you emulate his use of interpretive voices to bring the story to life.

After each reading, share your thoughts about what in the narrative and the reading of it helped the story come to life for you as a listener.

When your group reading experience is finished, discuss and reflect on what you have learned about the storytelling genres of personal narratives, memoirs, and essays. Prepare your story for submission to your teacher.

Activity 4: Reflect

We will reflect on our progress and the knowledge and skills we have developed in preparation for the Culminating Task at the end of the unit.

Step 1

Choose at least three of the questions below and respond to them in your Learning Log:

  1. How well did you take the necessary action to prepare for the task?

  2. What went well for you during the completion of this task?

  3. What did you struggle with during the completion of this task? How did you push through that struggle?

  4. How well did you actively focus your attention during this independent task?

  5. How well did you develop and use an effective and efficient process to maintain workflow during this task?

  6. What would you do differently during the next Section Diagnostic?

Review your Culminating Task Progress Tracker. Think about all you have learned and done during this section of the unit. Evaluate your skills and knowledge to determine how prepared you are for the Culminating Task.

Step 2

Review the Central Question of the unit:

What makes a good story?

Use the following questions to guide a discussion with a partner or small group:

  1. What new knowledge do you have in relation to the Central Question?

  2. What are you still curious about in relation to the Central Question?

  3. What is the relationship between the question and the texts you have read so far? How do the texts shed light on the question? How does the question help you understand the texts?

  4. How has your response to the question evolved, deepened, or changed?

In your Learning Log, write your response to Question 3. You will return to this response in later lessons to examine how your understanding of the Central Question has evolved.

Activity 5: Read – Write

We will read the opening two sections of Hampton Sides’s “Points Of Impact.”

Independently read the opening two sections of "Points of Impact" (pp. 1-2), focusing on the introduction of Ronnie Clifford’s story. Consider the following questions:

  1. What details does Sides present in his opening characterization of Ronnie Clifford?

  2. What initial sense do you have of him as a character in the story of 9/11?

Set up a Character Note-Taking Tool for this character, recording key details that stand out to you and then adding your initial analysis of what they tell you about the character and his situation.