Short Story Unit Focus: Make predictions…guess what will happen next! Predicting is made easier by understanding foreshadowing (hints at future events). The predictions we make will be based on clues and evidence in the story. Consider cause and effect (logic) when guessing what will happen.

Term Review Plot: A series of related events Exposition (basic situation) Conflict (character’s problem(s)) A series of complications Climax (the point when we learn the outcome of the conflict) Resolution (the closing of the story)

Term Review Flashback: An interruption of the forward movement of the plot with a scene from an earlier time. Writers use flashbacks to deepen our understanding of a situation or reveal details of a character’s past. In “The Leap” we will be looking at what the flashbacks tell us about the narrator’s view of her mother.

Term Review Conflict: A good plot needs problems or a struggle. This happens when two (or more) forces oppose each other. Internal Conflict: Happening inside the character’s heart or mind. External Conflict: Happens when a character faces off against nature, another character, or a group of people—even a whole society.

Term Review Setting: The time and place in which a story occurs The setting can reveal information about the customs of the society in which the story takes place A setting can also contribute to the conflict of the story Mood: The story’s emotional effect or atmosphere Ex.- Joyful, frightening, gloomy. A ghost story would have specific details that would create a creepy mood.

“The Leap” by Louise Erdrich Page 39 “The Leap” is about a woman who long ago performed with her husband in a circus trapeze act. Circuses like the one we are about to read about in the story used to travel all over America and Europe. Circus tents were set up in open areas in towns and cities. The woman we are reading about is blind from cataracts, which happens when the lens of the eye thickens and it is not treated.

Written Response Choose an event in “The Leap” that happened before the narrator was born. On a separate sheet of paper, identify the event and tell what it is called when the narrator interrupts the story with an event from the past. Explain where the event belongs in the story’s chronological sequence (what happens before and after it) and how the event affected the narrator’s life.