Narrative vs. Non-narrative

What is narrative? Narrative writing is writing that tells events in order. In other words, narrative writing is storytelling. Non-narrative writing is writing that presents anything that is not a story. Ideas Procedures Requests Arguments

Reading Non-narrative So far, we have been studying how to read non-narrative. Tools for understanding non-narrative writing are these: Determining what is general and what is specific Identifying a topic and main idea Identifying key points Looking for connections (transitions) between points Identifying minor points

Reading Narrative Reading a narrative is different. Stories do not always have main ideas. We need to look for different things when we’re reading narrative: Characters Setting Plot

Characters Characters are the actors in a story. Usually people. Can be animals. In some children’s stories or fantasy, characters could be plants, robots, or aliens!

Setting Setting: The time and place of a story. Often we think of setting just as the place. What country? What city? What type of terrain—mountains, forest, beach, another planet? What type of place—a library, school, bank, store?

Setting But time is just as important! Would a story set in Omaha 500 years ago be the same as a story set in Omaha today? Some stories happen all in one place, so in those stories, we track the setting by the passing of time.

Plot The plot is what we usually think of when we think of stories: It is the events. It is what happens. Events always come in a certain order, but they are not always told in order. We need to know sequence transition techniques to help us know what order the events come in.

Plot: Sequence One way to track the sequence is with transition words: First, second, then, before, after. Another way is with “time tags”: In June, yesterday, in 1997, on September 26. We will look more at these techniques when we get to our novel.

Using Characters and Setting to Track Plot One more way to understand the sequence of events is to look for changes of characters or changes of setting. Watching carefully for these shifts can help us not get lost in the events—especially when the events are repetitive. Let’s play with some examples!