Melusina

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Establishing Context, Point of View, and Sequence in Narrative Writing

Authors of narratives establish context, point of view, and sequence in the first few paragraphs of their story.
• Context is the who, what, where, when, and why of the story. It gives the reader the background information or the details necessary for understanding the events of the narrative.
• Point of view is the perspective from which the story is told. Narratives are usually from a first-person or third-person perspective. First-person narration means the narrator is one of the characters in the story, usually the central character. Third- person narration means the narrator is someone outside of the story. Third-person narrators can be omniscient and know everything about everyone in the story, or they can be limited and know the thoughts and feelings of only one character.
• Sequence is how the author organizes the events of the story. The events should be presented in an order that maintains a natural and logical flow. Most narratives achieve this by presenting events in chronological order, or the order in which events occur. Some narratives, though, make use of flashbacks, beginning with the climax of the story and then explaining the events that led to the climax.

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Here’s How
Here are some questions and tips that can help develop a narrative text successfully.
• Boldface details that provide context, or background information, to your narrative. Details about context answer the questions, Who? What? When? Where? Why?
• Think about the point of view, or perspective, from which the story is being told. Is the narrator one of the characters in the story? Is it someone outside the story? If it is an outside narrator, how much does that narrator know about the characters? Does the narrator know everyone’s thoughts or just the thoughts and feelings of one character? Underline details that establish the narrative’s point of view.
• Use different colors to highlight the events in the story. Are the events presented in chronological order, or does the narrative use flashbacks? Which would make the story most engaging and understandable for the reader?
• Use italics to mark sequence words in the narrative, such as next, before, and after. Do these words help the reader understand the order of events? Add more sequence words or change the ones you have to make the order of events clearer.

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Using Dialogue and Description to Develop Characters in Narrative Writing

Character development is an important part of narrative writing. When authors develop characters, they use a variety of techniques that allow readers to feel they really know and understand those characters: how they look, what they think or feel, how they behave, and how they interact with others. Two of the most useful techniques for character development are dialogue and description.

Dialogue is a conversation between two or more people. By carefully choosing what’s said in these conversations, as well as how it’s said, writers can reveal a character’s beliefs, attitudes, personalities, and even where they come from. Similarly, an interior monologue, which presents the thoughts going through an individual’s mind, is another way a writer can develop character.

Both dialogue and monologue can also be used to advance the plot and develop the story line itself. Characters may talk or think about the problems they are facing, what has happened to them, or what they plan to do next.

With description, authors use precise language to reveal what the characters look like, what they are doing, and how they respond to others. Sensory details—details that appeal to the senses—can be used to describe them physically. In addition, precise words like shuffled, twitched, or mumbled can be used to describe how characters move and speak. All of these details can also reveal aspects of their personalities.

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Here’s How
Here are some questions and tips that can help you develop a narrative text successfully.
• Underline each line of dialogue. Does the dialogue help reveal the characters’ thoughts, feelings, beliefs, or personalities? Does some of it also advance the plot?
• Boldface descriptions that reveal what the characters look like, what they are doing, and how they react to others. Did you use precise words and sensory language to help develop your characters?
• Do the dialogue and description work together to give information about the characters?
• Is the story as a whole engaging, with a solid beginning, middle, and end?

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Using Transitions and Precise Words in Narrative Writing


A narrative is a piece of writing that tells a story about real or imagined events. The essential elements of a narrative text include characters, setting, and plot. To bring those elements to life, authors use clear transitions, descriptive details and sensory language, and precise words and phrases.

Authors use transitional words and phrases to guide readers forward. Transitions signal changes in the setting or sequence of events. They build connections between changes in time and place, characters, and action.

Descriptive details give the reader more information about a character, setting, or action in the story, often using sensory language. Sensory language describes something using the five senses: sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste. The underlined words in the following sentence are examples of sensory language: The warm sun beat down on the field of magenta and indigo wildflowers, filling the air with the scent of green grass and honey-sweet blossoms. Details and sensory language create interesting and vivid descriptions that enable the reader to visualize an event or experience.

Precise language helps capture important action and accurately conveys experiences or events in a narrative. Precise words and phrases express exactly what the author wants to communicate and helps clarify a reader’s understanding of key events. For example, the bird doesn’t “fly away,” it “floats to the sky” or “darts into the clouds.”

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Here’s How
Here are some questions and tips that can help develop a narrative text successfully.
• Begin by establishing a context for your narrative, introducing your characters, and describing the setting or situation. Organize the events that follow in a logical manner.
• Boldface the transitional words and phrases you use between sentences or paragraphs. Have you helped the reader move from one time/place or event to the next?
• Identify and underline words and phrases that are vague or unclear. Replace them with clear, precise language.
• Use italics to mark descriptive details and sensory language. Ask yourself, have I provided enough details to support my ideas? Add details to descriptions of characters, settings, or events in order to capture the action and enable readers to visualize the information presented.
• Provide a conclusion that flows logically from earlier events.

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Strengthening Wring by Focusing on Purpose and Audience

At each stage of the writing process (planning, drafting, revising, and editing), you can develop and strengthen your writing by focusing on how well you have addressed your purpose and audience.

Purpose is why you are writing or the reason you write. Common writing purposes are

• to entertain.
• to present an argument.
• to persuade.
• to inform or explain.

Ideas and information that do not serve the main purpose or distract from it should be removed from your writing.

Audience is who you’re writing for or who will read what you’ve written. Writing should use a tone and level of formality that is appropriate for the audience. Informal language, including contractions and relaxed grammar, suggests a personal tone that fits well when writing for friends, family, or peers. Formal language, including specific or subject- area vocabulary, and strict grammar, is suitable when you are writing for the public, including your peers, professionals, academics, teachers, or members of your community.

Keep in mind that sometimes better addressing your purpose and audience may require adding details, rewriting some sections, or trying a new approach. If you have trouble, try collaborating with a peer or adult.


In this activity, you will read an informative text and examine how well it addresses the author’s purpose and audience. You will use your answers to guiding questions to help you write a one-paragraph analysis of the text before revising it.

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Conducting Short Research Projects to Answer Questions

To conduct a research project, the researcher collects factual information about a question regarding a particular topic and then explains the information to an audience by writing an engaging and concise informative text.

A research project starts with a general topic, or a subject area. Once you have a general topic, you can use a graphic organizer, such as a KWL chart, to organize your thoughts. Ask the following questions to prepare for research: What do I already know about the topic? What do I want to know about the topic? Then ask additional questions to narrow the focus of your research. Be sure to use several different sources to do your research. Continue using the graphic organizer to narrow your topic and record your research results, as well as the sources you used.

In this activity, you will read a report about animal species that were thought to be extinct but reappeared. You will use your answers to guiding questions to help you develop your own research project.

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Part 2: Writing Instructions

Your science club is creating a website about the topic of extinct animal species, and you want to contribute a short research report for publication on the site. Select an extinct species you’d like to learn more about, develop research questions, and then conduct research, drawing on three reliable sources for facts and information. Use a KWL chart to develop your research questions and record your results. Then write a short report of three to four paragraphs.

Remember to
• organize your thoughts and research using a KWL chart.
• use questions to determine what you already know and what want to know about the topic.
• develop additional questions to narrow the focus of your research.
• consult three reliable sources.
• use details from your research as you write a report of three to four paragraphs.
• write an interesting, concise report to keep your reader’s interest.• review your writing for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.
• submit your KWL chart and list of sources with your report.

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Quoting and Paraphrasing Information from Sources

The first step in writing an informational text is to conduct research. Print or online books, magazine and newspaper articles, and academic journals are good places to look. Some websites, like government sites and organization sites, may also be helpful. As you research, assess your sources. Ask yourself: Who’s the author? Why did the author write this? Who published the information? Strive to use sources that have no bias about the topic and are written by people who are experts on your chosen topic.

Once you’ve completed your research, think about how you’ll present the facts and ideas you found in other sources. Avoid plagiarism, which is trying to pass off someone else’s words as your own. Instead, you can quote source information, which means using part of the original author’s text word-for-word, surrounded by quotation marks. Quote when you want to present a different viewpoint, refer to the source as an example, emphasize the author’s language or ideas, or when changing the word of the author’s idea would change his or her meaning.

You can also paraphrase text written by another author. Paraphrasing means explaining someone else’s idea in your own words. Do this when you can explain the idea in your own words or when the original source is too long to quote. Remember, the information you paraphrase should sound like it was written by you, not by your source’s author.

Make sure to include in-text citations directly after the sourced information to tell readers where they can find the source material. An in-text citation includes the author’s last name and the page number of the source, all in parentheses. This information is written in parentheses direction after the quoted or paraphrased information.

At the end of your report or essay, include a bibliography, which contains more detailed information about each source. There are two styles for formatting a bibliography—MLA and APA. It’s important to refer to these sources because the order of the information and the information required in each citation is different depending on the type of source. For example, when you use an electronic source, your citation must include the website address and the date you retrieved the information.

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Part 2: Writing Instructions

Complete the following activity. Use the Here’s How section below as a guide to help you with your work.

Activity: Yesterday your pen leaked, and you got ink on your favorite shirt. Your friend has a blog, and sometimes she posts helpful tips. You ask her if she’s ever written anything about getting ink out. She hasn’t, but she thinks it’s a great tip to include in her blog. You do a quick Internet search and find the article above. Use your answers from Part 1 to write a one-paragraph post based on this article. Remember to use your own words to paraphrase the article and to include at least one quote. Include an in-text citation for the quotation you use.

As you write, remember to avoid plagiarism, paraphrase and quote correctly, and write your citation using the correct style.

Here’s How
Here are some questions and tips that can help develop an informational or explanatory text successfully.
• Restate the purpose of your blog post in your own words. Circle important words to make sure you complete your assignment.
• How can you paraphrase and quote the information so you don’t plagiarize?
• Underline the information you’ll use for your citation. Have you written your citation correctly and placed it appropriately?
• Explain to readers why this information is credible. Think about who wrote the article and whether it is biased.

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Writing a Literary Analysis

A literary analysis provides a judgment, or claim, about a literary work. The claim will focus on a particular literary element and discuss how or why that element is significant to the story. Evidence, in the form of direct quotations or paraphrases, from the literary work will support the claim. In addition, explanations will connect the text evidence to the claim.

In this activity, you will read an excerpt from a short story and analyze various literary elements. You will use your answers to guiding questions to help you write a literary analysis that discusses the importance of a specific element.

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Option 2: Write a literary analysis of a text assigned or approved by your teacher. Review your answers in Part 1, and use the information in this document to guide you in analyzing the author’s treatment of literary elements, such as theme, setting, conflict, character, or style (word choice, syntax, and figurative language). Select one element as your focus. Then, craft a claim statement. Use evidence from the text to support your claim.

Remember to do the following:
• Begin your introduction by introducing the story. State the title and author and what the story is about. For a short story, your summary shouldn’t be longer than a few sentences. For a longer text, you may need to provide more information.
• End your introduction with a claim about the story by identifying the literary element you find most interesting and its importance in the text.
• Support your claim with text evidence (quotes and/or paraphrases from the text).
• Provide explanations that connect the evidence to your claim statement.
• Conclude your analysis with a restatement of your claim and a summary of your main points.

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