Tag: narrative
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Background in Historical Fiction
One of the hardest things in writing historical fiction is to describe the world fully enough for the modern reader to imagine it while at the same time not having the character exclaim over, or even notice, items that are common to them. In our everyday lives, for example, we pass by buildings in our…
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Creative Nonfiction
One of the writing genres we teach in sixth grade is personal narrative. A narrative is a story, or fiction, but a personal narrative is based on a real event. The struggle is getting students to write good stories about an event in their lives. Now personal essay, or memoir, is supposedly a different genre.…
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Writing Exercise
This week in a writing class, we have a fun assignment. Try it yourself! *It needs to be one paragraph, exactly seven sentences. No dialogue. *It should be the first paragraph or the last paragraph of a Young Adult novel, meaning the main character should be a teenager. *It can be in first person, but…
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Revising a Narrative
Now that NaNoWriMo is over, a LOT of people are revising the novels they just finished writing. Revising is a difficult skill to teach. I’ve told students that revising is changing the words to make it better. That helps them understand, but it really doesn’t tell them what to do. I’ve heard of teachers who…
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Emotion in Narrative
At the beginning of the school year, I teach Personal Narrative. Students who are reluctant writers always do well in this unit because Everyone Has a Story. They learn how to take a memory with impact and turn it into a story that can impact a reader. To begin, I ask students to remember an…