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LITERACY - TERM 2

PLANNING NARRATIVES - a genre of writing that entertains or tells a story with text types that include: adventure, fairy tale, fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, personal narrative, realistic fiction, and science fiction.

This term we have been looking at planning narratives. We used the parts of a narrative, to plan our stories and I have been delighted with the response. The 5 parts of a narrative are:

  • Orientation - characters and setting. Limit yourself to 2 main characters.
  • Problem - what is the main problem confronting the characters?
  • Complication - what happens to make the problem worse?
  • Resolution - how is the problem solved?
  • Conclusion -how do the characters end up?

We call this planning tool - OPCRC because of the initials of the 5 components. This is what we refer to as a mnemonic - a memory tool which the students can use readily as a prompt when it comes to planning a story (or for spelling).

Writing a story is really tough. Try it yourself. Take a topic like “The most amazing thing ever…..” which is the sort of topic which appears on the AIMS tests (now called NAPLAN tests) and we expect students to write a story in 50 minutes on this topic. It’s tough. That’s where the planning tool comes in as a very useful prompt.

OPCRC is easy to remember and easy to use. For instance, I might plan the following story.

  • Orientation - myself and my best friend Molly
  • Problem - we go exploring caves and get caught inside one when the tide comes in.
  • Complication - Molly gets asthma and my mobile phone doesn’t get service inside the cave
  • Resolution - a local comes along with his metal detector, scouring the beach for treasures. He hears our calls and is able to get help.
  • Conclusion - Molly is fine, we get out but decide that next time we go caving, we will pay more attention to the tides.

Have a go at planning your own narrative using this template and next time you read one of the stories your child has written, think about how tough the process is.

FLESHING OUT THE STORY

I then advise the students to flesh out their stories by writing at least one paragraph on each of the story parts in their plan. At the very least, they should come up with a story of 5 paragraphs.

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN THE STORY

  • Write from what you know - don’t write about murders, car chases or robberies, like so many of our boys do. Think about things you have experienced and then use this as a basis for your story. eg. I have been to Melbourne. I know what a big city smells like, sounds like, looks like in the day and night etc. I know what it is like to be lost in a city. I can use all of these experiences to write a very credible story, based on fact and when you use facts and experience to write, you are able to describe things a whole lot more than trying to write about something you have never experienced. Even the most mundane things can be written about and made to appear loads of fun.
  • Similes - Write that something was like…… eg. The tram was crowded like Telstra dome on a Friday night football game.
  • Adjectives - use adjectives to describe some of your nouns eg. The colourful tram
  • Paragraphs - each time you change topics, start a new paragraph
  • Sentences - One conjunction - one fullstop.
  • Keep the ending credible - which is one of the reasons that the planning is so critical. Many students get lost and can’t finish a story, why? They most likely have chosen to write about something they don’t know about or they haven’t bothered to plan.
  • Do NOT finish with - and then he woke up, or then he died. Basil boring!

Now - your challenge is to have a go at planning your own narrative/story. Use the planning tool OPCRC to plan your story and then see how tough it is to flesh it out in an interesting way. Enjoy.

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