1. Analyzing Writer’s Craft

2. Writer’s Craft…Words Paint a Thousand Pictures

3. What is Writer’s Craft?
Craft is the art of writing. It is the writer’s intentional use of the following to create an effect on the reader:
figurative language
imagery/details
Internal dialogue
dialogue/dialect
Irony or other literary devices
sentence structure/strong vocabulary/stylistic devices

4. Writer’s Craft Encompasses:
Style
Tone
Voice
Audience Awareness
Structure/Organization
Technique

5. Categories of Craft Word Craft—careful, deliberate word choice
Structural Craft—organizational features
Audible Craft—sound choices
Visual Craft—print features
Laminack & Ray

6. Word Craft Deliberate, artful choice of words [Ray 1999]
Figurative language
Word Choice
Vivid verbs
Imagery
Details

7. Structural Craft Organizational Framework of the Writing [Ray 1999]
Text structure
Paragraph types
Transitional devices
Parallel structure
Repetition
Page Layout/White Space

8. Audible Craft Language that Lingers… [Laminack 2007]
Noticed without even seeing the print [[Laminack 2007
Alliteration
Assonance
Onomatopoeia
Rhythm
Cadence
Hard/Soft Sounds

9. Visual Craft
Thoughtful, artful placement of text on a page [Laminack 2007]
Must be seen to be noticed [Laminack 2007]
Print Features (bold, italics, fonts, punctuation)
Line breaks
White space
Graphics—pictures, illustrations, charts, maps

10. Analyzing Writer’s Craft
Let’s analyze for Literary Devices and Figurative Language.
First, read over your cheat sheet!
Take a moment to refresh your memory of literary devices & figurative language.
Writer’s Craft Literary Devices/Figurative Language Definition Sheet

11. Now…Beyonce’s Halo Listen to the song.
As you listen, underline ANY literary devices or figurative language that you see.
ONLY underline the devices/language!

12. Figurative Language Refresher
Remember figurative language is language that cannot be taken literally.
For example,
Line 1: “Remember those walls I built…”
Is Beyoncé known for traveling the United States with a hard hat, bricks and mortar, building walls?
NO! As listeners, we have to make inferences of her intended meaning by analyzing her use of figurative language.

13. Beyonce’s Experience with Walls

14. Halo
Beyoncé's Halo

15. Halo x 2
Now that you’ve underlined examples of literary devices and figurative language, we’re going to listen to “Halo” again.
This time, as you’re listening, use your list of terms to LABEL each item that you have underlined.

16. Discussion!
What evidence of literary devices/figurative language did you find in the lyrics?
Quote them. (Claim them!)
Label them. (Name them!)
Explain the author’s purpose. (Frame them!)
Why did Beyoncé and her co-authors choose to use those literary/figurative language devices?
What do the devices mean?

17. Analyzing Writer’s Craft
Claim It!
Quote from the Work
Name It!
Label the Device/Technique
Frame It!
Explain/Analyze Author’s Purpose
“Remember those walls I built…”

18. Analyzing Writer’s Craft
Claim It!
Quote from the Work
Name It!
Label the Device/Technique
Frame It!
Explain/Analyze Author’s Purpose
“Remember those walls I built…”
walls=metaphor

19. Analyzing Writer’s Craft
Claim It!
Quote from the Work
Name It!
Label the Device/Technique
Frame It!
Explain/Analyze Author’s Purpose
“Remember those walls I built…”
walls=metaphor
To show that she’s been hurt before and is guarding her emotions/ heart
Now, it’s your turn!
Allow time for participants to claim, name, and frame!
Discuss w/group, then w/whole group.

20. Analyzing Writer’s Craft
Claim It!
Quote from the Work
Name It!
Label the Device/Technique
Frame It!
Explain/Analyze Author’s Purpose
“Remember those walls I built…”
walls=metaphor
To show that she’s been hurt before and is guarding her emotions/ heart
“…they didn’t even put up a fight…”
personification
To show that she is really in love now, not fighting it
“I got my angel now…”
metaphor and/or
allusion
To show emotional significance of new love

21. Let’s Take it to Text “Bryan’s Plane Crash”
Written as a typical student’s sample.

22. Bryan’s Plane Crash
Bryan heard a loud noise as the plane’s wings were torn off of the plane. He braced himself, then his head hit the wheel as the plane hit the trees.
The plane went through the trees then crashed into the water. People were screaming all around him. He unfastened his seatbelt and went out the window to get free of the wreckage.

23. Writer’s Craft: Transforming Telling to Showing
Notice how the typical student sample is just relaying of a list of events.
No craft techniques are used.
Writer’s Craft takes writers/readers beyond the surface of events.
Now read an excerpt from Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet.

24. As You Read…
Underline/highlight what speaks to you as a reader—evidence of good writing:
Vivid verbs
Literary devices (metaphors, similes, idioms)
Sensory details (where you can see, hear, smell, taste the story, or feel for/with the characters)
Sentence structure/word choice (sound, rhythm, tone)

25. Don’t Make it Difficult…
Just mark what you like as a reader.
There are no right or wrong answers!

26. From Paulsen’s Hatchet  
There was a great wrenching as the wings caught the pines at the side of the clearing and broke back, ripping back just outside the main braces. Dust and dirt blew off the floor into his face so hard he thought there must have been some kind of explosion. He was momentarily blinded and slammed forward in the seat, smashing his head on the wheel.
    

27. Then a wild crashing sound, ripping of metal, and the plane rolled to the right and blew through the trees, out over the water and down, down to slam into the lake, skip once on water as hard as concrete, water that tore the windshield out and shattered the side windows, water that drove him back into the seat.

28. Somebody was screaming, screaming as the plane drove down into the water. Someone screamed tight animal screams of fear and pain and he did not know that it was his sound, that he roared against the water that took him and the plane still deeper, down into the water. He saw nothing but sensed blue, cold blue-green, and he raked at the seatbelt catch, tore his nails loose on one hand.

29. He ripped at it until it released and somehow - the water trying to kill him, to end him - somehow he pulled himself out of the shattered front window and clawed up into the blue, felt something hold him back, felt his windbreaker tear and he was free. Tearing free. Ripping free.

30. Writer’s Craft
What elements of writer’s craft do you see in Paulsen’s excerpt?
Name, Claim, Frame (on your chart)
How does writer’s craft impact the reader?

31. Writer’s Craft is EVERYWHERE!
You can analyze ANY type of text for Writer’s Craft… poetry film clips informational text argumentative text

32. Also Analyze Craft for…
Writer’s Style
Text Features
Text Structure
Idea Development/Support
Argumentative Techniques
ANY text you read can be analyzed for craft

33. Tips for Use
I have students analyze writer’s craft on most everything we read.
We started small…
Only looked at literary devices/figurative language for period of time
Used with Lit Circles
Students created our definition sheet
Then we analyzed for stylistic devices, then text structure, etc. to build our writers’ eyes.

34. Tips for Use
I have students analyze writer’s craft on most everything we read.
We keep craft sheets in sheet protectors in the middle of their 3 pronged writing folders.
We refer back to craft findings for revision of writing.

35. Sources Ray, Katie Wood. Wondrous Words. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1999.
Laminack, Lester. Cracking Open Author’s Craft. New York: Scholastic, 2007.