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Lesson 4

We will draft the middle scenes of our narrative and discuss ideas with writing partners.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I develop my Culminating Task draft into a focused, structured, and coherent piece of writing by using strategic organizational structures appropriate to purpose, audience, topic, and context?

  • Can I develop my Culminating Task draft into a focused, structured, and coherent piece of writing by developing an engaging idea reflecting depth of thought with effective use of details, examples, and commentary?

  • Can I compose my Culminating Tasks using the genre characteristics and craft of informational texts?

Texts

There are no texts for this Lesson.

Materials

Tools

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Read – Write

We will begin thinking about the body of our narrative: the events, characters, conflicts, and complications that will be developed.

Return to any essay, poem, article, or story you have read in the unit and review how it developed the body of the narrative. Note how the author might transition from the introduction, which might focus on an idea or an interaction of people, to the body. Use the guiding questions to review:

  1. How are the details in the body related to a main idea or theme that is established in the introduction?

  2. How might you use similar structures in your own narrative?

Review the Complication section of the Storyboard Planning Tool, making edits as needed as you gather new ideas on presenting your own story.

Activity 2: Discuss

We will discuss our story ideas with a writing partner.

With your writing partner, review your story plans and drafts and discuss ideas for developing the middle of your personal response. Discuss what text you returned to from the unit, and what you recorded and revised in the Complication section of your Storyboard Planning Tool.

Activity 3: Write

We will draft the middle scenes of our narrative.

Using your story outline or storyboard as a guide, draft the body of your narrative.

As you conceive and write the middle scenes—the complication for your story—think about how to develop characters, ideas or themes, metaphors, or complicating events.

  • Introduce and describe events and character actions that develop your narrative.

  • Further develop your characters or driving ideas.

  • Develop conflicts or disagreements that challenge or change your characters, or help develop an idea or theme. These can be conflicts with other characters, with nature or other forces, or within themselves (or yourself).

  • Use dialogue to highlight your characters’ development and interactions.

  • Build suspense and interest through the sequence of events. If your narrative is not chronological, bring in flashbacks or foreshadowing.

  • Build toward a climactic scene, event, or idea that will present a turning point in your personal response.

Activity 4: Write

For homework, we will continue working on the body of our narratives.

For homework, continue writing or revising the middle scenes of your narrative.

Review your Mentor Sentence Journal. Select at least one technique that you have studied and incorporate it in your narrative.