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Lesson 1

We will review the requirements and options for the final writing task to determine which option we will pursue. Then we will identify the organization for our personal essay or narrative. In writing pairs, we will present and discuss our initial ideas for our narrative and receive constructive feedback from our partners.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I synthesize information from a variety of research sources and unit texts to create new understanding as they start to plan my Culminating Task?

  • Can I plan my Culminating Task to be appropriate for various purposes and audiences by generating ideas through a range of strategies such as journaling, reading, and discussing?

Texts

There are no texts for this Lesson.

Materials

Tools

Reference Guides

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Read – Write

We will determine what kind of personal essay or narrative we want to write and begin to envision the story we want to tell. In seminar teams, we will discuss what we learned from presenting our ideas in the previous Section Diagnostic and how we might apply any new understanding to our narrative essays.

Step 1

Closely read and annotate the Culminating Task Checklist.

Think about the following planning questions:

  1. What do the question and task expect you to think about and do?

  2. What type of writing will you do? What choices or options do you have?

  3. What do you need to think about and decide so you can succeed on the Culminating Task?

Notice that all three options involve narration or storytelling. If you write a reflective narrative, you will be telling the story of how you have discovered answers to the unit’s questions through reading, discussion, and personal reflection. If you write a personal essay, you will need to use example stories—your own and those from authors you have read—to illustrate and support your ideas about your topic. And if you write a personal narrative, you will need to think about the details of the illustrative story from your life that you want to tell and the meaning you hope readers will find in it.

In all three cases, you will need to think about how to use a narrative structure as you plan your writing.

Determine what kind of personal response you want to write and begin to identify the major narrative elements of the story or stories you will tell: setting, structure, main characters, plot events, use of dialogue and description, and general themes.

To support your initial planning, review your entries in your Learning Log in which you have previously written personal reflections or narratives in response to texts in the unit. Also, think about how those texts have used stories to communicate their ideas.

Step 2

In your seminar teams, discuss your presentation for the previous Section Diagnostic using the following guiding questions:

  1. What new understandings or insights about your topic and personal essay have you come to as a result of your preparation and delivery of your presentation?

  2. How can you use what you have researched, discussed, and presented to tell a story?

Activity 2: Discuss – Write

We will develop our thinking by reconsidering the elements that make a good story.

Work with a partner to develop your thinking. Reconsider the unit’s Central and Task Questions:

  1. What does it mean to live a life well-lived?

  2. What compass might you carry as you undertake your journey in the world?

  1. What have you discovered about living a life well-lived from the stories, metaphors, and potential compasses you have encountered in this unit?

  2. How might you express your discoveries through personal writing?

Think about and discuss the following related questions:

  1. How can you communicate a claim about living a life well-lived via a narrative?

  2. Which stories, essays, and poems have you most enjoyed reading in this unit? What about them appealed to you? How might you emulate them in writing your own story?

  3. How does presenting your findings help you think about what information you want to share and how to share it?

  4. Who might your readers be? What kinds of experiences would you want them to have when reading your story? What might you want them to think about or feel?

  5. What writing option most suits what you wish to write about and engages your own interest as a writer?

Record the thinking that emerges from your discussion in your Learning Log.

Activity 3: Read – Discuss

We will determine which type of narrative we want to write and how we want to build the story from personal experiences, unit texts, or research.

Decide how you will build your story from your own experiences, unit texts, or your research.

Review the texts, notes, and tools you have worked with throughout the unit. Pay attention to what you have recorded in your Learning Log after thinking through the previous activity’s questions. Then think about what option you will choose:

  • Option 1: A reflective narrative in which you tell the story of how you have come to the discoveries you have made through the reading, thinking, and discussion you have done in the unit

  • Option 2: A personal essay in which you focus on an important experience (e.g., family), quality (e.g., determination), or virtue (e.g., empathy) and use stories from your life and texts from the unit to illustrate your thinking

  • Option 3: A personal narrative based on a meaningful story from your own life that communicates a message about living a life well-lived that is connected to the stories and ideas from the unit texts

Then, consider what you need to think about to tell the type of story you want to write.

Activity 4: Write

We will plan the elements we will use to tell our stories.

Based on previous discussions, begin to plan the specifics of your story.

Think about the central elements of a narrative and how they will work together. Answer the following questions:

  1. Setting: Where and when will your story take place? What sort of atmosphere will you try to develop?

  2. Characters: Who will you include in your story? For each character, what will be their external and internal features? What will they want and need?

  3. Narrative Point of View and Voice: Who will tell your story? A third- or first-person narrator? Will the narrator be omniscient (able to see inside the characters’ thoughts and feelings)? What perspective and voice will the narrator bring to the story?

  4. Life Well-lived Claim: What aspects of living a life well-lived and a life compass will your narrative address? What will be the central ideas, themes, or morals of your story? Will your story be a parable or allegory with an obvious central theme, or will you leave it up to your reader to decide what the meaning of the story is? What research might you include?

In your Learning Log, write out your initial thoughts in response to these questions in preparation for discussing them with a writing partner.