Week 3

Readings

Winch et al. Chapter 13: The Role of Writing

The chapter highlights include:
A Social View

     Contexts of culture and situation

-    Audience and purpose

-    Multiliteracies

-    What is writing?

-    The power of language

-    The evolution of language

-          - Literacy begins well before a child goes to school. Presents of books and print media are around them inside and outside home. The child should be exposed to a rich diversity of language and a variety of contexts as well as be allowed to use and experiment with language.

-         -  The schools needs to develop and use the language the child brings to the school. As they progress through school, they gain greater control over their writing as they become more aware of their audience and purpose.

-         - Useful aspects for commenting on students writing is looking at grammar, punctuation, spelling etc. 

Gamble and Yates (2008) Narrative: Narration and Structure

Gamble and Yates provides a resourceful reading which gives appropriate back ground knowledge and generally a better understanding of narratives and the way in which they are structured and what they contain. The main points from this reading are as follows: 
A story can be told in many ways and this is where the author can decide whether they want the narrative told in first, third person or even both. 
The point of view affects the way that the reader "experiences the story" which is why it is important who the author chooses as the narrator for the story. 
To make a "scene more immediate" or to make it seem like "a past event continuing into the present" the story will be narrated in a present tense, otherwise it will be in past tense.

-        Plots can be shown through story shapes. They are an easy alternative to planning a narrative's plot in the story and can help plan how many lead ups to the climax the author wants. 

     Author's will experiment with new forms of narration 

Lecture

Lecture overview: Narrative – structure and language

The lecture provides an interesting look at the structure of a narrative as well as the language features. 

Insights to students learning in regards to writing a narrative is made clear at the begging of the lecture by stating that students usually think that 'writing' means writing down 'ideas, insights or visions.' 

The structure is described as having an exposition which is the part that sets the scene and also introduces characters. The complication which is when someones life becomes complicated somehow. The climax, where 'suspense' is at peak height. Resolution, the solution to the complication. Finally, the Coda, 'moral of the story' what is learnt from the experience? 

The language features include:
Adjectives (adjectival phrases) such as the tiny quiet mouse. These are noun groups
Adverbs (adverbial phrases) such as in the daytime, with a shivering body, around the corner. These are circumstances
Verbs (verbal groups) He reached, She yelled, They worried. These are action/saying/mental processes 
Words indicating time (linking sentences together) Before the moon came up. 
Figurative language such as similes and metaphors
Dialogue 
First, third person
Looking at the illustrations, what do they say that the text doesn't?

As examples, the lecture looks at Anthony Brown's Voices in the Park, Crew Gary's The Watertower as well as a brief look at the action and mental processes in a section from one of the famous Harry Potter book by J,K Rowling.  


Workshop

The workshop involved looking back over the Gamble and Yates reading discussing our Story Shapes and how our group members shapes varied. Which one had the most amount of complications leading up to the climax? etc. The seven basic plots was explained in more detail after having looked at this also from the reading. The seven basic plots included:
The Quest
The Tragedy
The Voyage and Return
The Comedy
Overcoming the monster
The Rebirth
The Rags to Riches

Each table was given a story and an activity to go with it. The activity asked to write from the perspective of a certain character in the story and this took time as it required to go back through what was read and figure out the personality of the character in order to make it sound convincing.