Skip to Main Content

Lesson 3

We will read and examine a contrasting example of Hampton Sides’s craft as a writer of historical narratives, “The Birdman Drops In,” a story about skateboarder Tony Hawk. We will closely examine Sides’s use of imagery and language to make his narrative come alive.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I note key details and analyze relationships in Sides’s narrative about Tony Hawk?

  • Can I analyze how imagery and language are used by Sides to dramatize his true story?

  • Can I compare and contrast two historical narratives by Sides?

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

Optional

  • Digital Access
    • “The Birdman Drops In,” Hampton Sides, Outside, 2002

Materials

Tools

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Read

We will read “The Birdman Drops In” as a second, contrasting example of Hampton Sides’s narrative nonfiction.

On your own, read a second nonfiction narrative by Hampton Sides, "The Birdman Drops In," a new journalism narrative about skateboarder Tony Hawk.

Activity 2: Read – Write

We will examine an excerpt from Sides’s narrative about the historical roots of skateboarding, in order to study the author’s use of language to build vivid descriptions.

Step 1

To help you do this activity, access the Sides Language Use Handout.

Closely read and annotate Paragraphs 47 and 48 of "The Birdman Drops In," paying attention to the following guiding questions:

  1. What words or phrases seem unfamiliar or challenging to you?

  2. What words or phrases strike you as vivid or interesting in how they depict the history of skateboarding? Provide specific examples from the text,

  3. How does Hampton Sides use language to enliven the story he is telling?

For each of the 12 excerpted phrases on the handout, write definitions of the italicized words, paraphrase the excerpt, and explain what you think Sides is saying.

Step 2

Sides uses the first sentence of Paragraph 47 to set the scene for his expository narrative.

Way back in the mists of Southern California history, back when the surfboard first sprouted wheels and rolled onto the kelp-strewn shores, in the dark time of teen endeavor that's come to be known as B.E. (Before Extreme), the youth dwelled in a world that was, we now realize, pitifully dull.

Using his sentence as a model, write a scene-setting sentence you might use in your own narrative. A frame for this sentence is included in thehandout.

Activity 3: Discuss – Write

We will compare the two Sides narratives to develop conclusions and claims about the use of fictional elements in narrative nonfiction.

As a class, compare the two very different Hampton Sides narratives, "Points of Impact” and "The Birdman Drops In." In what ways are their stories and moods different? In what ways can you see similarities in how the author has used the elements of fictional narration to tell his true stories?

After you discuss as a class, individually form a claim about the use of fictional elements in Sides's narrative nonfiction, citing evidence from the texts to support the conclusions you have drawn. In your Learning Log, write a paragraph explaining how you might bring what you have noted in your claim into your own writing of a historical narrative for the Section Diagnostic.