Teach young writers some commonly used strategies to pace their narrative writing. Students will learn to use formatting, dialogue, and description to speed up or slow down their piece.
Students will be able to name and identify strategies that narrative writers use to modify the pacing of their stories.
Introduction
(10 minutes)
Tell students the story of your day, or a part of your day, in two different ways.
First tell it giving each part equal time. For example, I woke up, showered, got dressed, ate breakfast, drove to school, prepped for the day, and started teaching.
Tell the story again. This time choose one part to slow down and give more detail through imagery or dialogue. Perhaps you slow down the story to tell how you got cut off at an intersection, or stopped at the gas station and had an interesting interaction with someone.
Discuss the difference between the two tellings of the story. Ensure that students note the slowed-down pacing of the second story and begin to think about how you slowed the story and why you chose that part.