Story Elements___________________________

_____________________________________________ _________

CharactersA dynamic character:

a. changes b. does not change

A static character:

a. changes b. does not change

Round CharactersA round character

a. many insights are given.

b. Few insights are given

A flat character

a. many insights are given.

b. Few insights are given

Flat Characters

a. Dynamic b. Roundb. Static c. Flat

In most books the main character is both _______ and _______.

Setting

The setting of a story includes the __________________________in which the story takes place. Some stories may have more than one setting.

SettingTHE LION AND THE MOUSE by Aesop

A lion asleep in his den was wakened by a mouse running over his face. Losing his temper, he seized it with his paw and was about to kill it. The mouse, terrified, pleaded to the lion to spare its life. "Please let me go," it cried, "and one day I will repay you for your kindness." The idea of so small a creature ever being able to do anything for him amused the lion so much that he laughed aloud and let it go. But the mouse's chance came after all. One day the lion got tangled in a net. The mouse heard the lion’s roars of distress and ran to help. Without hesitation it set to work to gnaw the ropes with its teeth and succeeded before long in setting the lion free. "There!" said the mouse, “You laughed at me when I promised I would repay you, but now you see that even a mouse can help a lion." What is the most likely setting for this fable?

A. a zooB. a savannahC. a desertD. a swamp

First-Person Point of View

In the first-person point of view one character tells the story. This character reveals only personal thoughts and feelings of what s/he sees. The writer uses pronouns such as "I“, "me“, “mine”, or "my".

Example:I woke up this morning feeling terrific. I hopped out of bed excited to start the new day. I knew that today was the day my big surprise would come.

Second-Person Point of View With the second-person point of view the narrator tells the story using the pronoun "you".  The character is someone similar to you.

Example:You wake up feeling really terrific. Then you hop out of bed excited to start the new day. You know that today is the day that your big surprise will come.

This is rarely used in literature. It can be seen in Choose Your Own Adventure books.

Third-Person Point of View

The third-person point of view is the most commonly used in fiction. When writing in the third-person you will use pronouns such as "he", "she", or "it".

Example:Brian woke up feeling terrific. He hopped out of bed excited to start the new day. He knew that today was the day that his big surprise would come.

1st, 2nd, or 3rd Point of View Excerpt from Woodsong by Gary PaulsenI go up to the front of the team in the darkness and drag them around, realizing we are lost. My clothes have been ripped on tree limbs and my face is bleeding from cuts, and when I look back down the side of the mountain we have just climbed I see twenty-seven head lamps bobbing up the trail. Twenty-seven teams have taken our smell as the valid trail and are following us. Twenty-seven teams must be met head on in the narrow brush and passed and told to turn around.

1st, 2nd, or 3rd Point of View Excerpted from Soldier's Heart by Gary PaulsenThere would be a shooting war. There were rebels who had violated the law and fired on Fort Sumter and the only thing they'd respect was steel, it was said, and he knew they were right, and the Union was right, and one other thing they said as well--if a man didn't hurry he'd miss it. The only shooting war to come in a man's life and if a man didn't step right along he'd miss the whole thing.

Charley didn't figure to miss it. The only problem was that Charley wasn't rightly a man yet, at least not to the army. He was fifteen and while he worked as a man worked, in the fields all of a day and into night, and looked like a man standing tall and just a bit thin with hands so big they covered a stove lid, he didn't make a beard yet and his voice had only just dropped enough so he could talk with men.

Excerpted from Soldier's Heart

by Gary Paulsen

Third-Person Point of View

Practice

Number your paper from 1 – 10.

1st, 2nd, or 3rd Point of View

1. Excerpted from Father Water, Mother Woods by Gary PaulsenIt started that simply.  At the courthouse or the library there was a large bulletin board, and for a dollar you could sign the board and write down your guess to win the car-through-the-ice raffle.  Of course, you never met anyone who had won, but only those who knew somebody who had won, and therein, in the winning, the simplicity was lost.

1st, 2nd, or 3rd Point of View 2. Excerpted from Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen        

A

        "Tonight we just do A." He sat back on his heels and pointed. "There it be."

        I looked at it, wondered how it stood. "Where's the bottom to it?"

        "There it stands on two feet, just like you."

        "What does it mean?"

        "It means A--just like I said. It's the first letter in the alphabet. And when you see it you make a sound like this: ayyy, or ahhhh."

        "That's reading? To make that sound?"

        He nodded. "When you see that letter on paper or a sack or in the dirt you make one of those sounds. That's reading."

1st, 2nd, or 3rd Point of View 3. Excerpted from Caught by the Sea by Gary Paulsen I drove to California that very day, straight to the coast, then north, away from people, to a small town named Guadalupe, near Santa Maria. There I bought some cans of beans and bread and Spam and fruit cocktail and a cheap sleeping bag and then walked out through the sand dunes, where I could hear the surf crashing. I walked until I could see the water coming in, rolling in from the vastness, and I sat down and let the sea heal me.

6. Choose the sentence that is written using a first person point of view.

A. While walking home, he tripped and fell into a puddle of water.

B. I believe that it’s important for students to be involved in after school activities.

C. The City Council should reconsider its recent vote on a tax increase.

D. Citizens need to exercise their right to vote in the next election.

1st, 2nd, or 3rd Point of View 4. Excerpted from Guts by Gary Paulsen I have spent an inordinate amount of time in wilderness woods, much of it in northern Minnesota, some in Canada and some in the Alaskan wilds. I have hunted and trapped and fished and have been exposed to almost all kinds of wilderness animals; I’ve had bear come at me, been stalked by a mountain lion, been bitten by snakes and punctured by porcupines and torn by foxes and once pecked by an attacking raven, but I have never seen anything rivaling the madness that seems to infect a large portion of the moose family.

1st, 2nd, or 3rd Point of View 5. Excerpted from Winterkill by Gary Paulsen

And I would like to stop the story of Duda here and tell how he got his divorce and married Bonnie and they adopted me and we bought a farm . . . . That's how it would end in a movie, with Rock Hudson playing Duda and Doris Day playing Bonnie, and that's how it should end, and that's how I dream of it ending almost every night, until I wake up sweating and remember that it isn't a movie and it doesn't end that way.

7. Choose the sentence that is written using a third person point of view.

A.Several of their players have signed scholarships to play college football.

B. You should know better than to send a text message while driving!

C. We need to take our time on this project; we could both use a good grade.

D. The red car with the black convertible top is mine.

8. Choose the sentence that is written using a first person point of view.

A.You need to do your best on the English test tomorrow.

B. Would you please pass the mashed potatoes?

C. Softball is my favorite sport, but soccer is a close second.

D. Darrell went to the movies with John this weekend.

9. Determine the point of view of the following passage.

Walking home, I heard someone running behind me. I was frightened. A tall man ran by me. He raced to an emergency police phone and frantically began pushing buttons. The man brushed sweat from his forehead and then noticed me standing there. “Hurry,” he began, “we need to get out of here quickly. There’s been an accident at the plant.”

What point of view is used in this passage?

A.first person

B. second person

C. third person

D. fourth person

10. Read the following excerpt from O. Henry’s The Ransom of Red Chief and determine the point of view.

“IT LOOKED like a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were down South, in Alabama -- Bill Driscoll and myself -- when this kidnapping idea struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, "during a moment of temporary mental apparition"; but we didn't find that out till later.”

A.first person

B. second person

C. third person

D. fourth person

Answer Key with Point of View

1. From Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli - third person limited

2. From From the Mixed-Up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E. L. Konigsburg - third person limited

3. From The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois - first person

4. From Number the Stars by Lois Lowry - third person limited

5. From Missing May by Cynthia Rylant - first person

6. From The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis - third person omniscient

7. From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - first person

8. From The Olympic Games by Theodore Knight - third person limited

9. From “Through the Tunnel” by Doris Lessing - third person omniscient

10.From “Pictures on a Rock” by Brent Ashabranner - third person limited

Some forms of conflict include the following:

•Person vs. _______

•Person vs. _______

•Person vs. _______

•Person vs. _______

ConflictConflict is the struggle between the opposing force.

1. A person vs. person conflict is between two people.

2. In a person vs. self conflict the main character has a problem within him/herself.

3. In a person vs. the environment conflict a character is struggling against the forces of nature.

4. Person vs. Technology- In a person vs. technology conflict, a character has a problem with robots or machines.

PracticeNumber your paper from 1 – 10.

Plot

The plot is the story that is told in a novel, play, or movie. The plot has five components.

Plot Structure ComponentsExpositionRising ActionClimaxFalling ActionResolution

Exposition The exposition is the introduction of the story.

It contains the _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______. It is the information needed to understand a story.

Rising Action

The rising action is the portion of the story where a _______ _______ _______. This is the longest part of the story.

Climax

The climax is the _______ moment of the story. It is the _______ _______ in the story that occurs when characters try to resolve the complication.

Falling Action

The falling action is where the characters begin to _______ _______ to the conflict and _______ _______ _______.

Resolution

The resolution is _______ _______ _______ _______. It is the set of events that bring the story to a close.

Theme

The theme is the insight _______________ ___________________________________________________________the writer shares with the reader. It is usually __________ directly, but must be __________.

The theme is the __________. Ask yourself this question. What should you learn from the story?

Practice with ThemeTHE LION AND THE MOUSE

by AesopA lion asleep in his den was wakened by a mouse running over his face. Losing his temper, he seized it with his paw and was about to kill it. The mouse, terrified, pleaded to the lion to spare its life. "Please let me go," it cried, "and one day I will repay you for your kindness." The idea of so small a creature ever being able to do anything for him amused the lion so much that he laughed aloud and let it go. But the mouse's chance came after all. One day the lion got tangled in a net. The mouse heard the lion’s roars of distress and ran to help. Without hesitation it set to work to gnaw the ropes with its teeth and succeeded before long in setting the lion free. "There!" said the mouse, "you laughed at me when I promised I would repay you; but now you see that even a mouse can help a lion."

What is the theme of the story "The Lion and the Mouse?" A. hunter's net cannot hold a lion for long.B. A mouse is good at chewing things.C. Lions and mice make good pets.D. Size doesn't matter when doing a good deed.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (excerpt)L. Frank BaumDorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner.

What is the theme of the passage?

A. the plain life of a prairie farm familyB. the things found in a home on the prairie C. building a prairie home D. living away from your parents

“The Fox and the Goat” by Aesop (paraphrased)       One day a fox fell into a deep well and could not escape. A goat, very thirsty,

came to the same well. When the goat saw the fox, he asked if the water was good. The fox, hiding his unfortunate problem by being cheerful, said the water was excellent. He encouraged the goat to jump down. The goat, paying attention to only his thirst, jumped down without thinking. Just as he drank, the fox told him of the difficulty they were both in and suggested an idea for their escape. "If," said he, "you will place your front feet upon the wall and bend your head, I will run up your back and escape, and will help you out afterwards." The goat gladly agreed, and the fox leaped upon his back. Steadying himself with the goat's horns, he safely reached the mouth of the well and made off as fast as he could. When the goat scolded the fox for breaking his promise, the fox turned around and cried out, "You foolish old fellow! If you had thought before you jumped into the well, you would never have gone down before you knew how to get back up, and you would not have exposed yourself to dangers from which you had no means of escape."

Choose the best answer. What is a universal theme in this story?

A. Look before you leap.B. Be kind to your enemy. C. Slow and steady wins the race.D. Do not attempt too much at once.

Theme Using Number the Stars

Theme Proof (Evidence)

Do anything to help a friend. Annemarie…