Reading Focus: Author's Purpose & Text Structure

Reading Focus: Author's Purpose for Text Structure

Text excerpts from "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" by Neil Gaiman

Learning Target

​SWBAT analyze how author's structure stories for specific purposes. (9B)

How do authors shape stories in ways that add to their effects on the reader?

​

​Essential Question

But first...​

How might you tell a story differently to a parent/adult than to your best friends?

Now this...​

What is text structure in a narrative (story)?

• It is the way the author constructs or shapes the story.

​

-OR-

​

• It is how they shape the story from the beginning, through the middle, to the end.

​Let's look at Finding Nemo...

Thanks Pixar and Khan Academy!​

​Video Task - Answer the following questions on your Video Task Card Handout (DUE @ EOC)

• ​Why does the speaker struggle to tell her joke?

• ​Why do the storytellers of Finding Nemo rearrange the story?

• What other elements of building a story stuck out to you ?

​

Open Ended

What was one observation you made about how the authors played with the structure (shape) of the story?

​Stories have shapes...

No, this isn't time for math!​

What are the shapes stories can take?

​Any story you write or tell has a shape to it.

​

​The pyramid is only one shape a story can take

​

You don't even have to follow one of these!

What are some tools authors use to shape stories?

• ​Flashback

• ​Foreshadowing

• ​Suspense

• ​Point of View

• ​Dialogue

• ​Cliff Hangers

• ​"in medias res" (in the middle of things)

• ​Irony

• ​Quests

Let's Chat...

Open Ended

Which shape do you think our story followed? Cite your evidence from the story. (RACE)

​Let's share out some amazing ideas!

​RANDOM CALLOUT TIME!

Open Ended

What do you think might happen if the structure of "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" were changed?

How would you change it?

​Let's share out some amazing ideas!

​RANDOM CALLOUT TIME!

What questions do you still have about how authors structure their stories?​

​Thank you!

Want to dig deeper into story shapes?​

​Discover the writer in you!

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