Hello!

Today was a day to regroup after being out last Thurs. and Friday. Students earned plenty o' signatures for Archer Cards today because of their almost perfect behavior for our guest teacher. Fantastic!

The learning goal today was to create tension and suspense in a narrative by stretching out the most problematic scene. This scene does not have to be scary or dramatic, it can be something happy or funny also. Writers do this by creating an "emotional arc" (sometimes called a "character arc"). They pick the most important or tense part of the story, and create a story arc based on just that moment - kind of like the car chase scene in a movie. It may happen over the course of a few minutes, but in the movie it lasts 20 minutes. This is the attention you are giving to the important part in your story. The story students are using is the one they wrote last Thursday.

We also talked about our novels and how students need to write with a "pencil in hand." They are underlining when they learn something new about a character, and then in the margin writing what they learned, and what the author did to help them learn that.
Example-
Excerpt:When I was a baby I would crawl under my bed and snuggle into a corner to sleep. I felt warm and safe leaning into two walls at the same time. 
What did I learn about the character? He perhaps didn't have parents who held him.
What did the author use to show me this? Flashback and inner thoughts

H/W: Draw an label an emotional arc. To do this, draw an arc (a curve). On the outside, write the events and details of each moment. You should have many because you are making the moment bigger than it actually was. On the inside, attach internal thinking and feelings to each moment. You can bring in more than one character, and you can also add dialogue. You will need this for tomorrow.

Thank you!