Lesson 3
Finalizing the First-person Narrative – How can we improve and finalize the first-person narrative we drafted in Section 2?
We will edit, revise, and finalize our first-person retelling of the Animal Farm story from a character’s point of view. We will use a self- and peer-editing process to ensure that the narrative is consistent in its use of pronouns and verb tenses and to increase the vividness of its verb and modifier choices.
Lesson Goals
Can I revise my drafted narratives to improve clarity, development, organization, style, diction, and sentence effectiveness, including use of parallel constructions and placement of phrases and dependent clauses?
Can I edit my drafted narratives using standard English conventions, including consistent, appropriate use of verb tense and active and passive voice?
Can I edit my drafted narratives using standard English conventions, including pronoun–antecedent agreement?
Can I compose an original first-person narrative?
Texts
Core
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- Animal Farm, George Orwell, Signet Classics, 2004
Materials
Tools
Reference Guides
Question Sets
Editable Google Docs
Activity 1: Discuss – Read – Write
We will begin the final review and revision of our first-person narratives by using a peer editing process to ensure the story is consistently told in first person from a point of view that reflects our understanding of the character telling the story.
Step 1
As a class, review again the expectations for the narrative you are writing for the Culminating Task:
Does your first-person narrative:
Clearly identify, introduce, and represent the personality, voice, and symbolic role of your character?
Describe the major plot developments of the story from your character’s point of view (as identified on the Animal Farm Storyboard Tool)?
Reflect your understanding of Orwell’s allegory and the characteristics of totalitarian societies he satirized?
Consistently narrate in the first person as you retell Orwell’s third-person narrative?
Use vivid action and descriptive words to bring your retelling of the story to life?
Tell the story in a consistent verb tense (past or present)?
Avoid major errors in grammar, usage, punctuation, and spelling?
As you revised your draft in the previous lessons, you should have focused on the first three points: making sure that your narrative reflects your understanding of your character, describes major plot developments from that character’s point of view, and represents your understanding of Orwell’s allegory.
Step 2
In this final revision lesson, you will be addressing the other four issues, which involve your choices of words and understanding of usage and mechanics:
Consistent use of first-person point of view
Use of vivid verbs and descriptions
Consistent use of verb tenses (likely past, but potentially present)
Avoidance of major mechanical errors
Step 3
In this first activity, you will review your draft to ensure that you have consistently maintained a first-person point of view and that the point of view is consistently representative of your character.
Follow along as your teacher reviews a passage from Animal Farm that is written in third-person point of view, using an omniscient narrator to tell the story of the animals, using third-person pronouns (he, him, she, her, they, them, their).
Step 4
Discuss the central expectation of your writing task: to retell the story from the first-person point of view of a selected character and how this is different from how Orwell has told the story.
Note and highlight the third-person pronouns (and nouns) that are used in the example passage.
Rewrite one or more sentences, changing the third-person pronouns to first person.
Step 5
Review what it means to use first-person pronouns (I, me, my, mine, we, our) in the retelling of the story.
Read through your rough draft, using a highlighter or underlining to identify all of the pronouns you have used in your narrative.
Identify any places in the draft where you may have slipped into third-person point of view as you have translated events and descriptions from Orwell’s writing. Correct any shifts by changing the pronouns or revising the sentences so they are consistently in first-person.
Step 6
Work again with your editing partner from the previous lesson to get a second review of your use of first-person point of view.
Review your partner’s draft and provide constructive feedback, considering these review questions:
Is the draft consistently written in first person? If not, where do errors in pronoun usage need to be corrected?
Is the story told from a consistent first-person point of view that reflects the writer’s interpretation of the character’s personality, voice, and symbolic role? If not, how might it be improved?
Step 7
In response to your partner’s constructive feedback, make revisions to the pronouns and point of view in your narrative.
Activity 2: Discuss – Read – Write
We will pay attention to the verbs we have used in our first-person narratives, reviewing verb tenses to make sure that they are consistent and also considering if we might increase the vividness of our writing through stronger verb choices.
Step 1
Consider two more of the expectations for your final first-person narrative:
Use of vivid verbs and descriptions
Consistent use of verb tenses (likely past, but potentially present)
In this activity, you will focus on editing to improve your draft in these two areas.
Follow along as your teacher reviews the role of verbs in sentences:
to present the actions of subjects (nouns or pronouns) in sentences
to maintain a timeframe for the telling of a story (usually in the past, but sometimes in the present)
to make the action more vivid through the choice of active and strong verbs
Review an example passage from Animal Farm that is consistently written with past tense verbs.
Discuss the ways in which the story might read differently if Orwell had decided to tell the story in the present tense.
Step 2
Review your draft narrative for its use of verbs and its consistency in telling the story either in past tense or, potentially, in present tense. Consider why you decided to retell the story in the same time frame Orwell uses (the past) or why you decided to make the story seem more immediate by telling it in the present, as if it were currently happening.
Highlight or underline all of the verbs in the sentences you have written. For each verb, determine if it is a past-tense or present-tense form of the verb. Note any places in which you might shift from one tense to another.
If you find shifts in time and verb tenses, determine if you intentionally wanted to bring the story from the past into the present, or, if you wanted to flash back into the past in a present-tense retelling of the story.
Correct (change the tenses) for any verbs you did not intend to shift from past to present (or vice versa) so that your narrative is consistently told in one tense or the other.
Step 3
Read an example passage from the book that uses vivid verbs to describe the actions that are depicted. Highlight and discuss the verbs that Orwell has used. Discuss what you “see” as you read the passage and how it evokes responses in you as a reader.
Step 4
Return to your draft narrative to examine the vividness of the verbs you have used. Note any that you think you might change to increase the vividness and power of your description of actions and events in the story.
Step 5
Work again with your editing partner to get a second review of your use of verbs and consistency of tenses.
Review your partner’s draft and provide constructive feedback, considering these review questions:
Is the draft consistently written in either past or present tense? If not, where do errors in verb-tense usage need to be corrected?
Is the story told in a vivid way through its use of interesting or powerful verbs? If not, how might it be improved?
Step 6
In response to your partner’s constructive feedback, make revisions to the verb choices and tenses in your narrative.
Activity 3: Discuss – Read – Write
We will review our drafts for the vividness of their descriptions, paying attention to the modifiers (adjectives and adverbs) we used and how they reflect our interpretation of our character’s point of view in narrating the story.
Step 1
Consider the expectation for your final first-person narrative that addresses the vividness of its description:
Use of vivid verbs and descriptions
In this activity, you will focus on editing to improve your draft so that its descriptions are more vivid and evocative.
Follow along as your teacher reviews the importance of using interesting and character-appropriate modifiers as your character describes and narrates events in the story.
Review an example passage from Animal Farm in which Orwell uses modifiers in an interesting and vivid way to bring the story to life.
Step 2
Review your draft narrative, paying attention to the modifiers (adjectives and adverbs) you used to describe characters, events, and actions from your character’s point of view.
Note the modifiers that seem to add vividness to your character’s retelling of the story and those that might be improved. Think about your interpretation of your character and whether the choices of modifiers reflect how your character would see and describe things.
Step 3
Revise your draft, changing modifiers that are not as strong as they might be or ones that are not consistent with how you have interpreted your character’s point of view.
Step 4
Work again with your editing partner to get a second review of your use of strong modifiers (adjectives and adverbs).
Review your partner’s draft and provide constructive feedback, considering these review questions:
Are the modifiers used in the draft as strong and vivid as possible? If not, where might they be changed and improved?
Do the modifiers reflect the way the character would see and describe other characters, events, or actions? If not, how might the descriptions be improved?
Step 5
In response to your partner’s constructive feedback, make revisions to the descriptive modifiers you have used in your narrative.
Activity 4: Discuss – Read – Write
We will work to identify and correct any major errors in grammar, usage, punctuation, and spelling that our teacher wants us to focus on.
Step 1
As directed by your teacher, review issues in grammar, usage, punctuation, or spelling that you should concentrate on detecting and correcting as you do final edits to your draft narrative and prepare it for submission.
Review your draft for places where you may have made any of the designated errors that you are to focus upon.
Step 2
Work with your editing partner to get a second review of your draft for any places in which you have made errors in the designated areas.
Based on your own and your editing partner’s review, make necessary corrections in the designated error areas.
Activity 5: Write
For homework, we will prepare a final draft of our first-person retelling of Animal Farm from our character’s point of view. We will try to address the expectations of the Culminating Task as we prepare to submit our narrative as evidence of our learning in the unit.
For homework, prepare a final draft of your first-person retelling of Animal Farm from your character’s point of view. This final draft will become part of your exhibition for the Culminating Task, along with your final claim about the “lasting” meaning of Orwell’s allegory and your original cover design.
As you draft, revise, and edit your final narrative, be sure to do the following things:
Clearly identify, introduce, and represent the personality, voice, and symbolic role of your character
Describe the major plot developments of the story from your character’s point of view (as identified on the Animal Farm Storyboard Tool)
Reflect your understanding of Orwell’s allegory and the characteristics of totalitarian societies he satirized
Consistently write in the first person as you retell Orwell’s third-person narrative
Use vivid action and descriptive words to bring your retelling of the story to life
Tell the story in a consistent verb tense (past or present)
Avoid major errors in grammar, usage, punctuation, and spelling