|
Lesson 3: Elements of FictionPurposeThis unit will help you identify four important elements of literature, so that you can understand them in stories you read and use them in writing of your own. Future lessons in this course will require use of these skills.
What You Will LearnAt the end of this unit, you should be able to do the following:
Reading AssignmentThe discussion will instruct you when to complete each reading assignment. Daybook of Critical Reading and Writing
Writers Express
DiscussionReading FictionIn this lesson, you will learn about the four elements of fiction: setting, character, plot, and theme. Learning about these elements will help you not only to read more efficiently but also to become a better writer. This lesson provides information about these four elements that will help you with future lessons.
Read and PracticeSetting: In a Certain Place and TimeThe setting of a story is where and when the story takes place. In some stories, you will know exactly the time and place. In other stories, the time and place may be more general. You may know that a story is set in the past, present, or future, but you may not know the date. You may know that the story takes place somewhere in the western United States, for example, but the author may not tell you the exact place, or the author may make up a place that doesn’t really exist. Setting is important, because it helps you to establish a frame of reference for events in the story (a way to understand events in the story). Sometimes the setting is so important that the story could not take place anywhere else. Sometimes, setting influences the conflict, characters, and plot of a story. Other times the setting is less important. 
Self-Check: Vocabulary
Begin by reading page 33 in the Daybook and then move on to pages 34–36. In The Wizard of Oz, there are several words that may be new to you:
As you read, find these words in the context of the sentence and try to predict their meanings. Check your predictions with a dictionary if you are uncertain, then check your answers.
Self-Check: As you read pages 33–36 and complete the activities, ask yourself the question below. Once you have responded, check your answer.
The author uses words that appeal to the senses (sight, sound, taste, smell, and feeling) to help bring you into the setting. We call these sensory images. Look for these types of words as you read. They will help you to visualize where the story takes place. 
Write: After you read this excerpt (a part taken from the book) from the Wizard of Oz, you will be writing in response to the instructions on page 36. This writing will describe the setting of your own fantasy story. Your textbook instructs you to think about a fantasy place you would want to visit. You will use words that help readers picture what you are writing about. This is called imagery, because these words help readers imagine an image. Sensory imagery describes what you see, hear, smell, taste, or feel. Be sure to include these types of descriptive words and phrases in your own writing to bring your setting to life. Don’t forget the writing reminders we discussed previously as you write. Share your work with your parent/teacher. If someone reads your description, could he or she draw a book cover of your setting like you did for Oz in the activity on page 35? You might ask your parent/teacher to draw what he or she thinks the setting would look like from your description. If the drawing looks very different from what you had in mind, go back and see if you can add some descriptive words that will help your reader “see” your setting more accurately. Characterization: Who’s Who?Development of characters is usually very important to a fiction story. We will be looking at different types of characters in this and future lessons. Some characters will be main characters and others will be minor characters. A main character has an important role in the story. Another way to classify characters is to look for the protagonist and the antagonist. The protagonist is the main character of a story. Sometimes the protagonist is the “good guy,” but not always. The antagonist is the character who causes problems for the protagonist. Remembering the prefixes “pro-” (which means “for”) and “anti-” (which means “against”) can help you remember which is which. Characters can be what we call “flat”or “rounded.” The type of character development an author uses depends on a character’s role in the story. Flat characters don’t have many sides to their personality and do not seem like “real” people. For example, the hero is not only good and brave, but also handsome, honest, helpful, etc. The villain not only does bad things, but looks and sounds like a “bad guy.” If you think about some of the fairy tales you have read, you can easily see these flat characters used.  Snow White’s stepmother, disguised as a peasant woman, offers her a poisoned apple. Wicked stepmothers often appear as flat characters in fairy tales such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel. Rounded characters are more realistic. They have many sides to their personalities. They may seem to act more like real people. They may make mistakes, lose their temper, act without thinking, and behave based on how they feel about a situation. Rounded characters may have conflicting attitudes that change over time. Although it would seem that a rounded character would be best, an author may choose to use flat characters. The author may need simple characters to keep from making the story too complex or to make a specific point. The author may not want the reader to look too deeply into a character, especially a minor character. Characters can also be static or evolving. A static character does not change from the beginning of the story to the end. An evolving character changes during the story. An evolving character is also usually a rounded character, because he or she has many sides. As characters evolve (or change), they may discover things and change because of them, grow up in a variety of ways, or even make bad decisions that turn out for the worst. An author can use several methods of characterization to develop the characters in a story. As a writer, you can use these same techniques to develop characters in your own stories.
Self-Check: Vocabulary
In There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom on pages 37–40, there are several words that may be new to you:
As you read, find these words in the context of the sentence and try to predict their meanings. Check your predictions with a dictionary if you are uncertain, then check your answers. You will use active reading strategies to help you describe the characters in this excerpt from There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom. This section will help you understand characters better. You will discover how authors include personality traits as you do the activities in this section. A personality trait is a characteristic a person has. Someone describing you might describe your physical characteristics (how tall you are, your hair color, etc.) and your personality traits (clever, caring, bold, outgoing, etc.).
Self-Check: As you read pages 37–40 and complete the activities, ask yourself the question below. Once you have responded, check your answer.
Write: On pages 39–40, you are asked to develop a character of your own and tell how he or she would have reacted in Jeff’s situation. As you complete this activity, think of specific words that you might use to help you describe the character. You learned in an earlier lesson that a thesaurus is a wonderful resource for writers, because it gives words that can be more descriptive. This is a good time to pull out that thesaurus to help you. (There are even online versions; see the Web Sites page for links to some.) Think about what your character wants, what he or she fears, what makes him or her happy, etc. Use your own experiences to help you develop your character’s traits. Remember that there are three ways for an author to give the reader information about the character: what the author says, what the other characters say, and the character’s own words and actions. You can use all of these methods in your own writing to show how your character would react in Jeff’s situation. Does your character seem real? Your textbook asks you to think about what your characters’ actions, words, thoughts, and feelings reveal. Try to include more than one or two of these in your descriptions. The personality traits you identify on page 39 should come out in the writing you do on page 40. Share your work with your parent/teacher. Can your parent/teacher identify traits through your character’s speech, actions, or thoughts? Plot: What Happens?The plot is the action that takes place in a story. Much of the time the plot centers on a conflict (problem) that must be solved (resolved). Some conflicts are major and span the entire story. An author must be sure to resolve them for the readers at the end of the book. Other conflicts are smaller and may develop and be resolved quickly. I often tell my students that if there is no conflict, there is no story. You might have a poem or a report or a memoir, but you won’t have a story. You will be working with conflict in many of the lessons during this course. You can think of plot being divided into three sections:
As we’ve seen, the conflict must be solved by the end of the story. You often use details and events of the plot to predict how this will happen. As you read “The Birds’ Peace,” think about the events in the story. You will need to use these events as a “springboard” for the writing you will complete at the end of this section.
Self-Check: Vocabulary
Several words from pages 41–44 may be new to you:
As you read, find these words in the context of the sentence and try to predict their meanings. Check your predictions with a dictionary if you are uncertain, then check your answers.
Self-Check: As you read pages 41–44 and complete the activities, ask yourself the question below. Once you have responded, check your answer.
Write: When you do the writing activity at the end of this section (page 44), it might be helpful to think of what Kristy learned from Fluter’s actions, even though you don’t know exactly what Kristy wrote to her father. You will use the skills of prediction and inference that you learned in lesson 2. Share your work with your parent/teacher. You might want to try making a “word/idea/concept web” around the word “war.” To do this, put the word “war” in a circle in the middle of your paper (like the center of a spider web). Then draw lines out from this circle and write questions, descriptions, or words that you think of. Doing this can help you come up with ideas for writing and help you understand your connections to your reading. You can find other examples of webs in Writers Express. (Remember how the index can help you find things in a book? Look up “web organizer” in the index of Writers Express.)  In your letter, did you use specifics from Kristy’s experience with Fluter that she might have included in her letter to her father? Did you deal with Kristy’s fears about her father being in war and her ideas on how people could learn from the birds’ way of dealing with their conflict? These are things that the father probably would have included in his letter to his daughter. Theme: What’s the Message?Learning about theme and the other elements of literature will help you prepare for the work you will be doing in future lessons and help you to become a better reader and writer. The theme of a story is its message or the author’s statement about life. Sometimes it takes the form of a main idea. It’s what the author is trying to communicate to the reader. In lesson 2, you practiced finding the main idea. In the pieces of writing included in this lesson, you will be finding the message that the author is conveying in the writing. Sometimes we say that the theme is the lesson a reader learns from a story. Your textbook tells you that a reader often has to infer (make an informed guess) what the theme is, because the author doesn’t say it outright. You will reread “The Birds’ Peace” to think about theme. Then, you will be asked to connect this theme to your own life. Remember that it’s important for you to use supporting details in your own writing. Don’t just tell “what,” also tell “why.” If you are having trouble figuring out theme, think about several fairy tales that are familiar to you. What is the lesson you are supposed to learn from the story? This is the theme. Talk about these things with your parent/teacher.
Self-Check: As you read pages 45–46 and complete the activities, ask yourself the question below, then check your answer.
Write: Each of us has had, and will have, many conflicts in our lives. Some will be serious, and others will be simpler to solve. Think back to what you identified as the theme of this story. It relates to being a peacemaker and understanding another person. When you look for a theme, you may not have the exact same answer that someone else has. Your response is based on your own experiences and what you bring to your reading from your life. Sometimes it depends on your age, where you live, and other things that are unique to you. You will use all of these things to help you determine the theme from “The Birds’ Peace” and relate it to your own life. You will complete the writing activity on page 46 for your lesson 3 progress evaluation. When you do this writing activity, you will be focusing on conflict and resolution. If you are having trouble with this writing, think about things that have helped you understand others. Be sure to think about these questions as you complete this writing:
Self-Check AnswersSetting: In a Certain Place and Time
Characterization: Who’s Who?
Plot: What Happens?
Theme: What’s the Message?
Skill LessonsQuotation Marks in DialogueIn many writings, the author will have characters speak to each other. Dialogue is people talking to each other. It’s easy to tell who is speaking when we are talking face-to-face, but it’s harder when we have to write out that conversation. To keep readers from getting confused, authors help us out by using quotation marks as signals. Quotation marks are used in written dialogue to show someone’s exact words. Quotation marks around dialogue look like this: “Hello.” They come at the beginning and the end of the exact words that a person says in a piece of writing. They are easy to pick out in reading and useful when you are writing. They work kind of like a traffic signal. They tell you to get ready for someone speaking. That way you don’t get confused as you are reading. When you write, you use the same signals to help your readers. Note that quotation marks are also used to surround words that an author is quoting directly from another written work. So in some text, like this discussion, quotations marks don’t always mean that someone is speaking. You’ll have to use the context to decide when they mean that a character is speaking. In dialogue, quotation marks are used to surround the group of words that tell exactly what a person says. They can come at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence. A writer will often use a tag to help you know who is talking. You’ll see an example of a tag below. Look at the sentence below and figure out what is being said and what part is the tag. “I can’t believe I won the race,” said Sam. “I can’t believe I won the race” is the quote. It is what the person actually said. The tag is “said Sam.” It tells you that Sam was speaking. Did you notice that there is a comma inside the quotation marks at the end of what Sam said? This comma is another signal. It tells you that the sentence is not finished. When there is a tag at the end of the sentence, we use a comma inside the quotation marks to tell the reader to keep going. You will notice that there is a period at the end of the tag. That period is the signal that the sentence is complete. It’s like a STOP sign. Sometimes a tag can come at the beginning of a sentence. When a writer does that, it looks like this: Sam said, “I can’t believe I won the race.” Did you notice that there is a comma to act as the signal that the sentence is not finished but that you need to pause and look ahead? Did you notice that the quotation marks start the quotation before the word “I” and end after the period? This period signals the end of both the sentence and the quote. Do you see how punctuation works like traffic signals? Hey, you might just be practicing to get your driver’s license by taking Fifth Grade Language Arts! Sometimes a tag can even come in the middle of a quote. Here is an example: “I can’t believe,” said Sam, “that I won the race.” Look at those punctuation signals. What are they telling you? The comma after “believe” tells you there is more to the sentence. The quotation marks after “believe” tell you what comes next will not be exact words. The comma after “Sam” signals that the sentence still isn’t finished, so keep going. The quotation marks in front of “that” tell you Sam is talking some more. Because “that” is not capitalized, you know it is a continuation of the sentence. Finally, you get to the STOP sign and the end quotes that tell you the sentence is finished. Wow! That’s a lot of information from just a few little signs, isn’t it? Think how important it is to use the right signs at the right time. Otherwise, the reader might have a wreck! Can you imagine how confusing a story with talking would be if no quotation marks were used? If the person is asking a question, a question mark should be used instead of a period. If a quote shows great excitement, use an exclamation mark in place of a period. Remember that capitalization is another type of signal to the reader that tells when a sentence begins. Look back at your Daybook and find examples of each of these kinds of quotations. There’s one more thing you need to know about dialogue. The signal an author uses to begin a new paragraph is called indenting. We see indenting used mostly when something is handwritten, but you will also see indenting in books. I am using what is called “block style” to type the instructions in this course, but it doesn’t work very well for stories or text that has dialogue. When I write in block style, I leave an extra line between paragraphs. When you indent, you don’t have to leave an extra space between paragraphs, because the indented space signals the reader that the writer is changing topics. Look at one of the fiction books you have. Do you see where the author has left a blank space at the start of some sentences? When you indent, you space over about a finger width (or use the tab key on your computer to move your cursor over the width of about five spaces) and then start to write. Each time a new person starts to speak, a writer must start a new paragraph. That is the signal that says, “Hey readers, I’m going to have a different person say something here.” Even if the character only says one word, you must start a new paragraph. Otherwise, we would get confused, or the writer would have to keep telling us who is talking and when that character stops. Do you see how the author of the fiction book you are looking at has indented the dialogue? You can just look at the page and immediately see whether people are talking.
Self-Check: Put in the correct punctuation for the following dialogue. (I have already put in the paragraphing to help you.) You can write your answers in your journal or on a piece of notebook paper. Share your work with your parent/teacher and then check your answers.
Now practice writing your own quotations. Use the examples above and the examples you find in your Daybook as patterns for your practice. Write at least three examples of each type of quote. Share your work with your parent/teacher. You should now complete the instructor-scored progress evaluation for lesson 3. After you complete this progress evaluation, you will be ready to go on to lesson 4. You will be building on the elements of literature you learned in lesson 3 to help you become a better reader and writer. You will find some of the information you learned in this section on the computer-scored progress evaluation at the end of lesson 4, so be sure to return to review this lesson again at the end of lesson 4.
Self-Check AnswersQuotation Marks in Dialogue“Hi, Sam,” said Martha. “Where are you going?” Sam turned around and said, “I thought I would ride my bike to the store and get a candy bar.” “Can I come with you?” asked Martha. “Well I guess you could,” answered Sam, “if you have a bike.”
Progress EvaluationYou should now complete the lesson 3 progress evaluation. Be sure to reread the general requirements for progress evaluations from the overview. Instructor-evaluated; 20 points totalComplete the following writing activity from page 46 of your Daybook and submit it for evaluation.
Be sure to think about the questions below as you complete this writing:
You may do any prewriting and drafting that helps you. Remember, this assignment is about an experience that relates to the theme of avoiding conflict by trying to understand others. Don’t retell the events of “The Birds’ Peace.” You may look back in your textbook or pull information from other sources. Be sure the work you submit is your own work. Submit only your final draft for assessment. Be sure to follow the instructions for submitting an instructor-evaluated progress evaluation. Your paper should have the following characteristics:
Your work will be evaluated by an instructor, using the scoring guide below. You may find it helpful to review the scoring criteria and an example of an A paper. Scoring Guide
Note: Progress evaluations must be submitted in sequence, and you cannot submit more than three progress evaluations in a seven-day period.
|