Narration & Description – Day 1
Modes of Discourse
Patterns of Development
Organizational Strategies
When you come in…
• What is your story?
▫ Write down several important events that have
occurred in your life.
▫ How have those events shaped the person you are
today?
Narration & Description
Background
• Narration – telling a story to make a point
• Description – evoking the senses to create a
picture
• BEST when used together for writing a detailed
account of some memorable experience
▫ First trip alone
▫ Last-minute political victory
▫ Picnic in some special place
Narration & Description
Purpose
• Introduce or illustrate a complicated subject
▫ Often used to support some other strategy
such as causal analysis or argument
• Analyze an issue or theme
▫ Example: new awareness of patriotism
because of travel in a foreign country
 Narrative purpose (what happened) and
descriptive purpose (what it felt like) linked to
other purposes
 Could explain what caused new awareness (why
it happened) or to argue that everyone needs
such awareness (why everyone should reach the
same conclusions)
• Report actions and describe feelings
▫ Autobiography, history, fiction (most
common)
Narration & Description
Audience
• Consider
▫ How much do I tell my audience?
(narration)
 Personal experience – few people will know it
before you tell it
 Add or delete material to fit occasion
▫ How much do I show my audience?
(description)
 Unusual subject – include a lot of info,
especially if it’s technical
 New images & insights that create a fresh
vision of the subject
Narration & Description
Strategies
• Beginning
▫ Experiences and an essay about the
experience are NOT the same
 Memory will be disorganized and poorly
defined
▫ Experience to essay
 Locate the central conflict
 Between writer & himself
 Between writer & others
 Between writer & environment
Narration & Description
Strategies (cont’d)
• After identifying the conflict
▫ Arrange action so readers know
 How conflict started
 How it developed, and
 How it was resolved.
▫ Types of arrangement (choose pattern according to
purpose)
 Simple chronological order (1, 2, 3, 4, …)
 Angelou’s “My Name is Margaret” – describes an evolution of
events leading up to the broken china
 Think of a movie that is told in chronological order…
 Start in the middle or near the end (4, … 1, 2, 3)
 Williams’ “The Village Watchman” – describes impact of social
stigma
 What about Seven Pounds starring Will Smith – begins at the
end then winds its way back
Narration & Description
Strategies (cont’d)
• After identifying the conflict & deciding the plot
sequence
 Establish pace – the speed at which the writer
recounts events
 Quick – omit details, compress time, summarize
experience
 Slow & careful – include every detail, expand on time,
present the situation as a fully realized scene
 Select details – make scenes and summaries
effective
 Special details that satisfy the needs of readers and
further your purpose
 Objective or technical to help reader understand
 Subjective or impressionistic to appeal to readers’ senses
 Present details so they form a figurative image or create
dominant impression
Narration & Description
Strategies (cont’d)
• In order to identify the conflict, decide the
plot sequence, vary the pace, and select
details
 Determine point of view
 “I” OR “he” or “she”
 Choose position – how close do you want to be
to the action in time and space
▫ Involved in action
▫ View it as an observer
▫ Tell as events are happening or many years after
they’ve taken place
Narration & Description
Points to Remember
1. Focus your narrative on the “story” in your
story – that is, focus on the conflict that
defines the plot.
2. Vary the pace of your narrative so that you
can summarize some events quickly and
render others as fully realized scenes.
3. Supply evocative details to help your readers
experience the dramatic development of
your narrative.
4. Establish a consistent point of view so that
your readers know how you have positioned
yourself in your story.
5. Represent the events in your narrative so
that your story makes its point.
In this excerpt
from her graphic
novel Persepolis:
The Story of a
Childhood (2003),
Marjane Satrapi
recounts the
reaction of young
schoolgirls to the
law requiring
them to wear “the
veil.”
Some argue that
the veil debases
and even erases
female identity.
Others argue that
it provides women
with safety and
secret power. How
do the characters
in Satrapi’s
narrative feel
about this
regulation?
Defend my claim…
• It is the responsibility of
parents to indoctrinate their
children into the beliefs and
views of their culture.
• One paragraph, 8.2 format
(may use a concrete example
instead of a quote).
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
Topic Sentence/Thesis
Concrete Detail
Commentary x 2
Concrete Detail
Commentary x 2
Transition/Conclusion
BRING YOUR BOOK TOMORROW!
Narration & Description – Day 2
Modes of Discourse
Patterns of Development
Organizational Strategies
Narration & Description
Points to Remember
1. Focus your narrative on the “story” in your
story – that is, focus on the conflict that
defines the plot.
2. Vary the pace of your narrative so that you
can summarize some events quickly and
render others as fully realized scenes.
3. Supply evocative details to help your readers
experience the dramatic development of
your narrative.
4. Establish a consistent point of view so that
your readers know how you have positioned
yourself in your story.
5. Represent the events in your narrative so
that your story makes its point.
“Maria” from West Side Story
• Movie Summary: West Side Story is the
award winning adaptation of the classic
romantic tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. The
feuding families become two warring New
York City gangs- the white Jets led by Riff
and the Puerto Rican Sharks, led by
Bernardo. Their hatred escalates to a point
where neither can coexist with any form of
understanding. But when Riff's best friend
(and former Jet) Tony and Bernardo's
younger sister Maria meet at a dance, no one
can do anything to stop their love. Maria and
Tony begin meeting in secret, planning to run
away. Then the Sharks and Jets plan a
rumble under the highway - whoever wins
gains control of the streets. Maria sends Tony
to stop it, hoping it can end the violence. It
goes terribly wrong, and before the lovers
know what's happened, tragedy strikes and
doesn't stop until the climatic and
heartbreaking ending.
• Scene Set-up: Tony and Maria have just met
at a dance. Bernardo, Maria’s brother, orders
Maria to go home and tells Tony to stay away
from his sister. Tony leaves in a happy daze.
• Watch scene from movie.
Read Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Myth of
the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named
Maria”
Purpose
1. Why does Cofer introduce the conflict between custom and
chromosomes? How does this conflict help explain the concept of
stereotype?
2. How does this narrative help accomplish Cofer’s “personal goal in her
public life?”
Audience
1. In what ways does Cofer use the references to Maria and Evita to
identify her audience?
2. How does she use the example of the piropos to educate her audience?
Strategies
1. How does Cofere use the details of Career Day to explain how a cultural
stereotype is perpetuated?
2. How does she manipulate point of view at her “first public poetry
reading” to illustrate how she intends to change that stereotype?
Narration & Description – Day 3
Modes of Discourse
Patterns of Development
Organizational Strategies
When you come in…
• Get out your computer.
• Turn in your answers to the questions about
Cofer’s “The Myth of the Latin Woman…”
• Discuss with the people at your table Cofer’s
story.
▫ What (if any) new understanding did you have
after reading this story?
▫ What message about a person’s identity does she
convey?
Discuss Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Myth of
the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named
Maria”
Purpose
1. Why does Cofer introduce the conflict between custom and
chromosomes? How does this conflict help explain the concept of
stereotype?
2. How does this narrative help accomplish Cofer’s “personal goal in her
public life?”
Audience
1. In what ways does Cofer use the references to Maria and Evita to
identify her audience?
2. How does she use the example of the piropos to educate her audience?
Strategies
1. How does Cofer use the details of Career Day to explain how a cultural
stereotype is perpetuated?
2. How does she manipulate point of view at her “first public poetry
reading” to illustrate how she intends to change that stereotype?
OERs
• Answer the question.
• Support your answer with direct,
textual evidence.
• HALT!
Answer the question and support it
with details from the text.
• What does Judith Ortiz Cofer learn
from her encounter with the man who
sang to her in the hotel?
• What is Cofer’s primary goal in writing
“The Myth of the Latin Woman…”?
• How did Cofer change throughout the
narrative? (You must have two quotes
from the text.)
Narration & Description – Days 5 & 6
Modes of Discourse
Patterns of Development
Organizational Strategies
Final TAKS Push
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Writing Prompt – View Range Finders
Score your own Essay
Beth’s survey
It’s Thematically Linked!