Transcript attention grabber narrative

Thursday, September 15
Objectives
 Improve narrative writing skills
 Improve sentence structure
 Review rubric for narrative writing
Peer-feedback for Memoir Topic
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Choose your 3 most interesting memories that
you might want to write about.
Using the three index cards, write a brief 2-3
sentence summary of each memory (1 per
card).
Clear your desk of everything except the three
cards.
Peer voting on memories.
Descriptive Writing Practice
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Describe a time when you felt confused during
a teacher’s lesson.
Lexicon
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Sensory images: words that help a reader to
imagine experiencing a sight, sound, smell,
taste, or touch.
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Love
When I was five
She was my best friend
Attention Grabber: Setting
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The dim morning light beamed through the window. A
pile of clothes lay on the floor underneath the half-open
book bag. The alarm clock was buzzing,ring-ring-ring.
The smell of frying bacon wafted up from the kitchen
downstairs.
Light falling like dust on the wrinkled bed-sheets,
clothes discarded carelessly on the floor, the incessant
buzzing of the alarm clock—all of these created a
sense of quiet unease in the bedroom.
Setting Tips
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Try to avoid using the first person.
Focus on describing the spaces as if a movie camera
was panning across it; what would the camera see,
hear, etc.
Include vivid sensory images: sight, sounds, textures,
even smells and tastes. Choose them wisely, though.
Don’t go overboard.
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For example: The worn-out, dirty, smelly clothes sat on the
cold, brown, cracked linoleum floor.
Avoid the verb “to be” whenever possible.
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Instead of “It was raining,” write “Rain fell noisily on the roof.”
Attention Grabber: Dialogue
“No, I am not doing this again. Do you hear me? I
said do you hear me in there?” she shouted as she
banged her fist against the door. “Un-un, not one
more day.”
“Yeah Mom, I get it. Enough,” I mumbled as I
pulled the blankets up farther around my head.
She gave the door one final pound. “What did you
just say to me?”
“Nothin’. I’m up, ‘kay? I’m up.”
Dialogue Tips
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Start “in media res” which means “in the middle of
things” to create a sense of curiosity in the reader.
Use interesting dialogue tags: mumbled, complained,
whispered, etc.
After the first 2 or 3 dialogue tags, you can stop adding
them.
Make sure to indent every time the speaker changes.
Attention Grabber: Action
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I slammed my fist on the beeping alarm,
kicked the blankets off, and buried my head
under the pillow. Eventually, I pulled myself
out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom.
Action Tips
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Use vivid, interesting verbs.
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Instead of “I got out of bed” write “I fell/stumbled/melted out
of bed.”
Instead of “I was tired” write “I ached with tiredness.”
Make sure to pick a tense, and stay in that tense.
Do not use the past perfect if it is not necessary.
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Do not write “I had eaten breakfast and had left for school.”
Write, “I ate breakfast and left for school.”
Only use past perfect if you are doubling back: I had eaten
breakfast before my mother woke up.
Concept Description
Sleep is a bandage wrapped around a wounded
day. Ripping it off too soon leaves me feeling
vulnerable to the infection of routine life, and so
I guard my sleep with the desperation of a
starving dog.
Concept Tips
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Choose a key word or idea from your story that
can serve as an important theme.
Create an interesting definition using a simile,
metaphor or personification.
Don’t be afraid to use hyperbole in describing
the concept.
Avoid cliches!
Character Description
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“My mother believed you could be anything you wanted
to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You
could work for the government and get a good
retirement. You could buy a house with almost no
money down. You could become rich. You could
become instantly famous….America was where all my
mother’s hopes lay. She had come here in 1949 after
losing everything in China: her mother and father, her
family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin
baby girls. But she never looked back with regret.
There were so many ways for things to get better.”
(Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club)
Character Tips
Character description can involve any of the
following:
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Your feelings about this person: “Nothing I
experience feels real until I have had a chance to
share it with her over a cup of coffee.”
The traits that make this person unique: “He is so
serious about recycling that he saves the cotton
balls that are stuffed into aspirin bottles.”
Contradictions in the person’s identity: “She is the
loudest and quietest person I know”
Character Continued
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A brief bio
Physical appearance
An anecdote: brief, unusual story that illustrates
some aspect of the person’s character:
The person’s beliefs and ideas
Personality traits
Homework
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Write one full page of your memoir and bring it
in—typed or handwritten but preferably typed.
It must use at least 3 strategies that we have
studied.
Write on rubric: memoir is due on Friday,
September 23.