Beginning, Middle, and End 2/23/2021
- Sarah Scrattish
- Feb 23, 2021
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 23, 2021
The concept of beginning, middle, and end seems so concise and "easy" when considering writing stories and more specifically when writing narratives. I believe I am almost instantly taken aback to my days of story-mapping and flow-chart writing. Planning out the events in a story seems so concrete and simple, yet so much is poured into these 3 basic principles of writing a narrative.
When completing my writer's notebook entries for this week (continuing my work on a narrative) I wanted to begin a new narrative, starting fresh with the lessons from Mentor Texts (*second edition) that could be applied to the story I was yet to unfold onto paper. With this fresh story, I could take it through the mind of a teacher -- one who plans to engage in this lesson with her future elementary students.
The beginning of my story began to flow as I jotted down some ideas for the season, the location, the company, the city, and the regional attributes that surrounded me in the story I longed to write. I began with a list attempting the "Crafting a Lead Sentence" lesson from Chapter 5 in Mentor Texts.
As you can see, I began to stray from the idea of simply crafting just one lead sentence... I couldn't off-the-top of my head think of an opening line that I really wanted to "re-shape" for my story, so I invented my own as I listed and watched in my mind, the moment play out over and over. -- I definitely want to encourage my students to imagine their life as a movie per say. I want them to watch themselves and those around them in the memories that they have whether they be recent or a few years prior.
The wonderful Amy Krouse Rosenthal also inspired this "mind movie watching" with her own writing in Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. There's a section in her book entitled "Midterm Essay" in which she writes about her own life in an essay sort of format. One particular page struck me as she spoke about a distinct memory she had when she was 9 years old. In this memory she discussed her present (middle-aged) self joining her younger self sitting on the sidewalk which later they invited her 80 year old self.
This distinct and vivid memory is what moved me to play out the story I wanted to write before I even listed! Students should have the freedom to play around with the lessons they are taught, for these are tools we give them to explore and play around with -- like a canvas with a variety of different tools for creating their piece.
Moving forward, I attempted to also include the "Moving to the Middle" lesson in order to write the middle of my narrative piece. I began by listing and describing what I had seen and described in the beginning and I decided to focus in on one moment of the "drive" or the story. I wanted to expand upon the scenery and setting of the story through describing some of the elements I led with in the opening paragraph.
**Reading back, and describing my writing and thinking process, I understand that this is merely a draft and I will be working with this piece, as I have enjoyed playing with the elements of narrative story writing!
To conclude my practice with the lessons from Mentor Texts, I attempted the "Adding a Satisfying Ending" lesson from chapter 5 as well. The way that I began this piece was by actually using one of the books from my class this week entitled Drawn Together by Minh Le and illustrated by Dan Santat. (**I will describe this text in greater detail below!) I wanted to actually plan out a lesson of my own using this mini-lesson and this mentor text. I sort of combined a bit of the strategy from the lesson on crafting an opening line into this lesson about endings.
*The first image is my "lesson" with questions I felt were important to consider when reading Drawn Together.
*The second image is my application of the lesson with my own narrative writing piece.
When planning out the lesson based on endings of stories, I used the pages 28-32 in the story. The special thing about this book is that the words are quantitatively less than the illustrations, but equally qualitative. What I mean by this is that this story seems to have much bigger and bolder illustrations throughout, with few words and sometimes no words on the spread of pages. But the ending left lots of room for me to discuss with students about the last two pages being wordless and at the very end of the story. After discussing with students how powerful it can be to completely close your story with illustrations and describing the feelings they have in comparison to what the characters might be thinking or feeling, I went into discussion about the last words of the story (which precedes the last two images shown below).
The last words of the story are:
"Now, after years of searching for the right words, we find ourselves happily... SPEECHLESS."
I wanted to ask students to think about how powerful it is to end your story with the emphasis on a singular word. So with my own example, I thought of the "theme" in my story which for me, embodies "home." The combination with the opening line lesson came with my rephrasing of the last line in this story since it is SO powerful. I changed just a few of the words, but left enough to understand that this was taken from the mentor text -- modeling for students. My final sentence became:
"Now, after moons of wondering where I just might end up in my adult life, I find myself peacefully...
HOME."
Before actually sitting down to write, I thought this process would be mundane as I usually lean towards writing poetry and things of the like, but this process was something I felt I could engage in my descriptive writing practices -- describing a scene from my life.
The texts that I had the absolute pleasure of diving into this week were Drawn Together, as previously mentioned, and I Talk Like a River by Jordan Scott and illustrated by Sydney Smith. **Thankfully the site epic books has this story for free with an educator's account! Go check this book and the animated version out!!
Awards for I Talk Like a River:
I Talk Like a River is a story about a young boy who battles with a speech impediment; a stutter. This stutter causes struggles in his life academically, socially, and with his self-esteem. One day after a terrible episode takes place during class, the boy's father takes him down to a place of comfort -- a river. This river plays as a strong and mighty simile for the boy as he discovers a new sense of encouragement and power.
The reader is met with a similarity in the the story of Drawn Together, as the author does not write hefty paragraphs across his pages, but it is made known that each word that is chosen is full of emphasis and strength. The animated version of the story, read by Mr. Scott himself which was even more empowering to watch! Scott himself does have a stutter and so to hear him with this even when reading this story was an element of life and reality that was brought to this story and I appreciate his reading of his story -- the author reading his own written words, through his own experience. The whole experience of this story could be described using the word authentic.
The words on each page are arranged in the shape of a river with movement and flow. The pace of the story is made possible by the author's intentionality of each word. The space and the pause in the story is created through the literal space in the words, but also through the lapses of time that one might endure in their own classroom with anxiety over answering a question. The short areas of dialogue in this story also create an emphasis on the words the son's father speaks to him, pushing elements of comfort and empathy. Even in just a few words, the reader can understand the father is understanding (page 17). I feel the middle of this story is elaborated through the author's description of the river, the way it sounds, and how it connects to the way that he speaks (pages 26-27). Verbs are used to describe the river which is a strategy that I had not considered. Typically you think of adjectives to describe something, but since a river is never-ceasing, it seems only appropriate to use verbs when describing the river.
"bubbling,
churning,
whirling,
and crashing."
**This video is of the author and illustrator talking about the book and what it means to each of them as they created this and as it was yet to be released at the time that they made their videos discussing the book.
Drawn Together
Awards:
- 2019 CHHIBBER Medal for Best Picture Book - International Literacy Association: 2019 Notable Books for a Global Society
This story is incredible and has stolen my heart. A young boy goes to stay with his grandpa for a short while. Right from the start and on the first two pages, the young boy seems agitated that he is leaving his mother and going to his grandfather's. The words are not introduce into the story until the second page, after the reader has gotten a feel for the characters and their emotions that are being expressed. I feel this is a bold statement to be made by an author -- it really drew me in as a reader, asking the questions of what is going on and who are these people?
As the story progresses, we discover a language barrier that is yet to be overcome by the pair. The means in which they do fight for connection with each other is astounding. I will not spoil this tender tale for you, but I will give you a sneak peak at one of the images within the book.
The illustrations in this story are a true work of art. They tell the story alone, and the words are adding to action, truly upholding the book. I love how Minh Le has incorporated his words into this story in such a particular way -- in little bubbles of color, snaking along with the dragon, and in speech bubbles as dialogue. The reader is really in for a treat with this book as they discover an entirely new world between grandpa and his grandson. The imagery and symbolism as well was just chilling. The utensils are so unique to each character and they even learn how to embrace each other's tools and techniques.
**Here is the illustrator, Dan Santat discussing some of his artistic style with this story!
This story is absolutely one of my new favorites and I cannot wait to incorporate this into my future writing lessons.
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