1. The Great Gatsby
Re-creative Writing

2. Learning objective:
Explore expectations of the re-creative writing task on The Great Gatsby for the Writing About Society Unit.
Deconstruct text to understand writer’s literary devises
Identify how Fitzgerald shapes characterisation, narrative and discourse
Apply these skills in re-creatively writing extracts from another character’s perspective.

3. Exam Requirements for The Great Gatsby
Re-creative Writing
Commentary
A02: analysis [15 marks]
A04: explore connections between your work and the base text. [10 marks]
A05: creativity and expertise in the use of English (writing as a critic) [5 marks]
A05: creativity and expertise in the use of English (writing as an author) [25 marks]
See page 212 for more detail.

4. The Great Gatsby
Consider the effect of the determiner “the” in the title
What is the effect of the adjective “great”. How does it affect our interpretation?
Titles are paratextual features (additional to the base text).

5. Deconstruct
Adapt the questions to the introduction of The Great Gatsby in Activity 7 on page 195 of the course book, and answer them.

6. Deconstruct to Reconstruct
Consider discourse patterns. Can you apply Labov´s narrative categories to Fitzgerald´s introduction?
How does this affect the reader´s interpretation?

7. Deconstruct to Reconstruct
The Great Gatsby could be said to begin in media res (the narrative begins at a later point than the first plot event). Nick is analeptically reflecting back to create a retrospective narration.
Keeping with this idea means that another character may also narrate reflectively from some point in their future and therefore have foresight (knowing what will happen or how things will end).

8. Included and Excluded Participants
Recreative writing may ask you to rewrite from the viewpoint of a character who is included in the scene or excluded.

9. More detail: Characterisation
Attitude and behaviour, style of expression
Narrative
Plot, narrative moment, themes and motifs
Discourse
Discourse type and discourse features, audience
Read page 198 of the course book.

10. Character Studies to Re-creative Characterisation
Group work:
Each group chooses a different character from the text and answers the questions on page 200 of the course book.

11. Characterisation: Role Play
Group work:
Continuing in the same groups as before, complete Activity 12 on page 202 of the course book.
Role Play:
You will role play the character you prepared in your group. Make new groups comprised of one person from each of the first groups. Ask each other questions about yourself (your character). Try to speak and behave in the manner of your character.

12. Narrative: Constructing a Deictic Centre
Four Subtypes of Narrative Movement
Summary of events
Scene: a moment in the story which is given focus (temporal duration and text are equivalent)
Ellipsis: an event which is absent from the narration
Descriptive pause: an event of short duration is described in great detail
Read page 203, and complete Activity 14 on page 204.

13. Ellipsis: Which scenes can you think of where Nick as narrator has chosen to give sparse information? How could these scenes be developed?

14. Heterodiegetic Narration
A recast may ask you to write an extract from the third person (absent/heterodiegetic narrator) viewpoint.
This means that you would need to change:
the voice (first to third person)
the deictic centre, including temporal and spatial dexis
Removing the narrator’s opinion from language choices

15. Practice
In pairs, choose an extract and set a re-write task for your classmates.

16. Your ideas
Recast the scene where Tom breaks Myrtle’s nose from Myrtle’s point of view (page 38-9) from “My dear” to “I followed”.
Recast Nick’s first meeting with Gatsby from Gatsby’s point of view (page 48) from “A lull” to “picking his words with care”.
Recast the scene of Gatsby and Daisy reunion from Daisy’s point of view (page 81) from “Are you in love with me” to “got to my feet”.
You should write about 300 words.
25 marks

17. And…
Write a commentary explaining the decisions you have made in transforming the base text for this new account and the effects of reshaping Fitzgerald’s original description.
In your commentary you should:
consider how you have used language to shape your intended meaning
demonstrate the connections between the base text and your transformed text
structure your writing clearly to express your ideas.
You should write about 400 words.
30 marks] [