Starting Sentences - Hooking the Reader

At the beginning of the year we write about ourselves. All children can write about themselves and or their dreams.

To encourage them to write I show them some story starters, these can be used to start paragraphs or sentences but the hook the reader and help to keep the reader interested through the story.

 

We had a lot of fun writing a paragraph at a time using different hooks to keep the momentum of the story going.

Writing interesting Stories - Paragraph Starters

At the beginning of the year we write about ourselves. All children can write about themselves and or their dreams.

To encourage them to write I show them some story starters, these can be used to start paragraphs or sentences but the hook the reader and help to keep the reader interested through the story.

 

We had a lot of fun writing a paragraph at a time using different hooks to keep the momentum of the story going.

Plot more than telling a Good Yarn.

Reality often seems to have no rhyme or reason in fiction you can shape it, giving events patterns and meaning.

Classic Story Structure

Classic Story structure includes the beginning, the middle and an end.

Beginning

The beginning is where you introduce the audience to the setting, characters and the situation. It often ends with a something catchy to draw the reader in. A dramatic turning point, upsetting the routine everyday things (status quo) and sets the story in motion. The beginning of the crisis/dilemma or problem forces the characters to grow, changing direction and take action.

Middle

This is the longest part of the story.Characters pass through a series of events, complications or obstacles that increase the intensity. This causes tension to rise and fall building toward the BIG climax.

Climax happens after a dark point for the protagonist, pulling them self to triumph and employing what they have learnt, or it could be a downfall when they are feeling at the highest point.

The goal the hero is trying to reach could be irrelevant, and they may find the real goal is beyond what they first thought. E.g. The student may want to get past the bully and arrive at school. The ultimate goal could be to achieve at school but this isn't happening when you can't get to school safely. This realisation is the  mid point of the story not the moment of climax, a shift in direct creating more tension.

End

The end is a short section the pulls all the pieces after the climax to together, tying up lose ends.

Character Arcs

This is for more able writers, as they begin to show how a character grows through the story both emotionally and possibly physically (Grows from being 5 to 7 years of age). This change is called the character arc.

In the beginning of the story the character doesn't know things about himself. The character may think they are not strong, through events the character may realise to be strong doesn't mean you have to have muscles. The first turning point shakes up their beliefs helping the story and character to change course.

The middle of the story is the learning and growing section of the story for the character building to the climax. Where the character uses what they know and have learnt.

By the end the character has grown and changed their is a new equilibrium, way or the character could be defeated and completely disillusioned.

Of course the characters path should not be easy, they need to struggle toward the goal as each new challenge raises the stakes.

Dialogue is a Strong Weapon

Great dialogue or direct speech can make your writing efortlessly dynamic, funny and layered with meaning.

It is important to keep conversation natural, relevant and flowing. If it is stilted, unnatural or dull readers will cringe.

   

Importance of Dialogue

• Dialogue helps build characteristics
• Communicates information to the reader
• Speeds the story along.

Tight Dialogue

Gets the readers attention - An interesting piece of dialogue can start your novel rather than a slower description.

Brings Characters to Life - Dialogue helps to bring characters to life by showing their personality, their background, social status, education, the era they grew up in, mood and motivation through vocabulary, manner of speech as much as content.

To create Mood and Feeling - Dialogue can be charged with high emotion, portray feeling, sets atmosphere and helps the reader to empathize or dislike characters.

Move the Story along - Dialogue can rewind or remind readers of information they may have forgotten, or to inform them of what they need to know without lumps of exposition, lengthy description of an idea or theory.

Add Wit and Humour - Some characters are a delight to listen to, witty, foolish or outrageous. These conversation can be used to liven up a page.

Produce Conflict between Characters - Dialogue can contain a flaming argument or finely nuanced conversation full of bitterness, resentment, or innuendo to add crackle.

Create a sense of Time and Place -  People from different eras, locations speak quite differently. A Scot does not speak like a Kiwi (New Zealander). Vocabulary can establish where the story is set.

Pace your Story -  Dialogue speeds up pace making it feel less dense and due to the way set out less intimidating.

The amount of dialogue you use depends on personal style some like more, aim for a good balance or narration and dialogue.

.

Looking at Speech Tags.

The reader should never be confused about who is saying what. Use he/she said to clarify economically maybe at the beginning of a conversation after that no need to the tags.

You can position speech tags at the beginning, middle or end; mix it up with action and description. The reader needs to know who is talking without thinking about it.

A long paragraph of speech, put the speech tag near the beginning. If you leave it to the end the reader has no idea who is speaking.

Avoid pretentious or over elaborate speech tags; he protested, she exclaimed, gushed as they appear like the writer is trying too hard.

Children's ideas on Characterisation

As a class we looked at the Protagonist and Antagonist and the differences in how they might behave. Although some antagonist can pretend creating an interesting twist to the story. (Which we have not yet looked at.) We did discussed that some characteristics can cover both sets of characters such as; hair, eye and skin colour, clothing and personality.

 

  

Characterisation

When writing the author needs to know their characters inside and out, or they will seem to thin and unreal, acting only because the plot requires it.

I found one easy way to keep track of the characters in my novel were to record in a note book all the features and ways they affected due to a weakness or how it made them stronger after each set back. This way it was easy to consult as they faced the next challenge.

When writing I wanted to share everything I knew about a character. But the more I read the more I notice that we are feed small amounts of each character every-time they are portrayed in a story.

Writing Basics

Most students are familiar with writing using 'I' but they possibly haven't been taught it is first person. This is something I am aiming to correct this year during my teaching. I am planning on showing and encouraging students to use third person. By explaining it is like telling someone what occurred in a movie or favourite television program.

We wrote both first person and third adapting fairy tales then we made up a story about a plant.
Here are so examples of what the students in my class came up with.

Third Person:

A little while after they moved into the house. It was a very old house, it had an attic in the high pitched roof and a cellar under the ground. Coraline's family didn't own all of the house it was too big for that. Instead they owned part of it. There were other people who lived in the old house. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible lived in the flat below Coraline’s. On the ground floor they were both old and round, and they lived in their flat with a number of ageing highland terriers who had names like Hamish and Andrew and Jock. - Krystal

She called, “Hello.”

No one answered. She could smell some hot butter chicken in the cottage. Goldilocks called out again.Then she saw three chairs, an oval wooden table and three bowls. One was small, the second one was medium and one last was big. Her tummy growled. The delicious aroma too much for her. She took a bite. The first was too hot, the second one was cold and the third one was perfect. - Justyce

The long snake like path led to a small house with a roof made out of branches. The walls made out of brick and it was a gloomy day, so she went inside the house. Smelling the scent of sweet porridge as she looked at the bowls on the table. She tried the first bowl that she saw.

“YUCK it’s too cold,” Goldy said.

So she went to the next bowl and tried the porridge.

“AHH IT BURNS,” she said as she ran round and round. - Dante

First Person:

I was so sad my Step Mother and my Step Sisters went to the ball, leaving  me at home, cleaning up and cooking. ‘When do I get to go to the ball?’ I wondered. - Krystal

I was planted in a bottomless pit. I was freezing, I got planted without anything, no

water, sunlight or nutrients. It felt like I was in a chilli bin, it was that pitch black. Did I mention it was wet, because it has raining for hours. Until I got the sun over me, then  finally I was getting a bit warmer every minute. - Te Iriwhiro

I was so lonely in the pitch black soil. My mean owner never came to water me the only one who watered me was the clouds.

“Oh dear what is going on here.” I wondered to myself. “I can finally move around and relaxed.” - Breeze

“ OUCH!!!” I said.

“ Who was that And why do I feel trapped, enclosed” I wondered.

“Hmmm what to do,” I thought. “Uhhh I'll just wait.”

4 days later…

“ I'm tired of waiting, I'm going  to push myself out”.

“I'm finally free. OMG I feel so good, stretched out.”

“Woh, I am growing, out of this tiny shell. - Dante

I was a lonely seed in a pitch black hole. I had no friends. When I was buried I was watered. But right now I'll  stay put right here to be watered again.

The next day I got watered. Now I looked at myself there was something appearing out of me.

The next day I figure out what it was. It was my roots.

A few days later I grew a shoot. I wish I knew what would happen to me next.

“Would I stay like this? Or would I grow more?” - Akram

Perspective

We are learning how to use different perspective to help make our story writing more interesting. We wrote both first person and third adapting fairy tales then we made up a story about a plant.
Here are so examples of what the students in my class came up with.

Third Person:

A little while after they moved into the house. It was a very old house, it had an attic in the high pitched roof and a cellar under the ground. Coraline's family didn't own all of the house it was too big for that. Instead they owned part of it. There were other people who lived in the old house. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible lived in the flat below Coraline’s. On the ground floor they were both old and round, and they lived in their flat with a number of ageing highland terriers who had names like Hamish and Andrew and Jock. - Krystal

She called, “Hello.”
No one answered. She could smell some hot butter chicken in the cottage. Goldilocks called out again. Then she saw three chairs, an oval wooden table and three bowls. One was small, the second one was medium and one last was big. 
Her tummy growled. The delicious aroma too much for her. She took a bite. The first was too hot, the second one was cold and the third one was perfect. - Justyce

The long snake like path led to a small house with a roof made out of branches. The walls made out of brick and it was a gloomy day, so she went inside the house. Smelling the scent of sweet porridge as she looked at the bowls on the table. She tried the first bowl that she saw.
“YUCK it’s too cold,” Goldy said.
So she went to the next bowl and tried the porridge. 
“AHH IT BURNS,” she said as she ran round and round. - Dante

First Person:

I was planted in a bottomless pit. I was freezing, I got planted without anything, no 

water, sunlight or nutrients. It felt like I was in a chilli bin, it was that pitch black. Did I 
mention it was wet, because it has raining for hours. Until I got the sun over me, then 
finally I was getting a bit warmer every minute. - Te Iriwhiro

I was so sad my Step Mother and my Step Sisters went to the ball, leaving  me at home,
cleaning up and cooking. 
‘When do I get to go to the ball?’ I wondered. - Krystal

“ OUCH!!!” I said.
“ Who was that And why do I feel trapped, enclosed” I wondered.
“Hmmm what to do,” I thought. “Uhhh I'll just wait.”
4 days later…
“ I'm tired of waiting, I'm going  to push myself out”.
“I'm finally free. OMG I feel so good, stretched out.”
“Woh, I am growing, out of this tiny shell.  - Dante

I was so lonely in the pitch black soil. My mean owner never came to water me the only one who watered me was the clouds. 
“Oh dear what is going on here.” I wondered to myself. “I can finally move around and relaxed.” - Breeze

I was a lonely seed in a pitch black hole. I had no friends. When I was buried I was watered. But right now I'll stay put right here to be watered again. 
The next day I got watered. Now I looked at myself there was something appearing out. 
The next day I figure out what it was. It was my roots. 
A few days later I grew a shoot. I wish I knew what would happen to me next. 
“Would I stay like this? Or would I grow more?” - Akram

Writing a Narrative

Writing a narrative seems a logical next step for children who have been writing recounts of their own experiences. They just have to add some imagination to their story. Children are full of imagination so this should be easy right?

We have been reading Wonder by RJ Palacio.

As we have been reading we have found a range of figures of speech used. One of my favourite is hyperbola or exaggeration. Everyone's heard the story of the fish that got away it was too big to fit in the boat anyway.

Wonder is no exception Auggy talks about knowing every brick on the street. And we wondered every brick, does he mean that makes a fence? That is a lot of bricks. So every brick for every house WOW!

The reaction to using exaggeration has been positive. The children even wrote the worst pizza stories ever. Here are some examples of their exaggeration.


In front of me was the most disgusting, horrible pizza on burger buns. It would put me off my food for life. On top of the bun was pineapple, cheese, BBQ sauce, onions, sliced frankfurters and the worst part about it was the wiggly worms in hot sauce and chicken feat. I covered my mouth to stop my stomach churning. - Amelia

Then our teacher changed her smile grew wicked, the gleam in her eyes was scary. I waited for my pizza. The smell of the pizza drifted my way. Mmm..mm it smells yummy, but not when I saw my friends pizza with worms in it I was about to vomit.  When I got my pizza it had chicken feet in my pizza, I am never going to eat pizza again. - Krystal Leigh.

My puku was rumbling I had never been so hungry. I gathered my plate of pizza. As I stepped out the door my pizza fell on the ground. I couldn't believe the speed of the ants covering the bun. I picked them up to flick off the ant only to find the tiniest rocks stuck in the cheese. I was so hungry I did not want to tell anybody that I'd dropped my pizza. I took a bite and felt the rocks grating against my teeth. I dry reached. I'll never look at a pizza the same way again. - Braedyn

When I had the pizza on my plate I was about to taste it but I saw something moving inside the pizza. I wanted to vomit. It had worms in hot sauce and chicken feet too. Ugh! I looked away from my pizza I had never seen something so disgusting. - Mariah

Welcome