The Value of a Story Chart

       I have been using this story chart in my classes for as long as I can remember.  For literary analysis, the chart allows students to take apart any short story, play, novel or non-fiction narrative by reducing that narrative to its basic elements.  For me the most important part of the chart concerns the conflict, for without a conflict a story simply doesn’t exist.
       I have always used the same anecdote to illustrate this point.  An older, somewhat disheveled gentleman is sitting at the counter in a coffee shop with a cup of coffee in front of him.  A waitress is straightening up behind the counter.  They are the only two people in the shop early on this weekday morning.
       No conflict exists in this scenario, so as interesting as these two characters may be, nothing is going to happen.  Now if the waitress were to pick up the fresh pot of coffee behind her and walk over to where the man is sitting in order to offer him a refill, lose her balance because of a slick spot on the floor behind the counter and pour steaming hot coffee down the front of the man’s shirt, quite suddenly and unexpectedly a story has begun.
       Of course, the author of this story has to decide from whose point of view the narrative should be told, the customer or the waitress, and she or he probably ought to have some sense of who these two people are (although that may change over the course of the story); nevertheless, this particular narrative has begun.
       For creative writing, the story chart provides a good way to help students get started when they are writing their own original short stories.  In addition to filling out the chart, I usually ask each student to write a description of her or his main character, the setting and the conflict before he or she actually starts writing a draft of the story because I want to try to steer him or her away from disaster, and descriptions of these basic elements give me some sense of where each student is headed.
       As I have already mentioned briefly at the start of this note, the story chart also provides a student with an equally good way to get a sense of how any story that he or she is reading operates.  One way or another, in filling out a chart for that narrative, students will discover something they wouldn’t have realized if they had not done so.  Whether students are taking stories apart or putting them together, a story chart can become an essential tool in their literary toolbox.  I hope you will agree!  Best of luck, Harper       

Writing Poetry in Middle School

       Teaching students to write poetry in middle school should be a joyful activity, and one of my favorite poets, Donald Hall, implies as much in the last three lines of his poem, “The Sleeping Giant.”
 

 Later the high and watchful sun instead
 Walked low behind the house, and school began,
 And winter pulled a sheet over my head.

The narrator in the poem spends the earlier lines reminiscing about a time when he was four and his imagination allowed him to believe that a hill in Hamden, Connecticut, called “The Sleeping Giant,” actually concealed a giant who was fast asleep but would eventually awaken, wreaking havoc on the nearby community for burying him in dirt and vegetation.  In the last three lines of the poem, the narrator is suggesting that as we grow older “school” or “winter” causes us to lose the sense of wonder we once possessed when we were younger.

      In my experience that sense of wonder thankfully survives into a student’s middle school years, which is why teaching poetry to sixth, seventh and even eighth graders can be so rewarding.  When you look at the pieces in this packet, I hope you will quickly realize that the least important of them is the sheet on poetic terminology.  You may want to use that sheet to show eighth graders that to write traditional poetry involves a great deal more than the effective use of imagery, figurative language and the combination of sounds that make what I like to refer to as “the music” of a poem.

      Using figurative language, rhyme and rhythm effectively so that a poem sounds as if it has occurred as naturally as the spoken word takes a great deal of practice.  Some students may want to try their hand at something like iambic tetrameter, and I would not discourage them, but for sixth and seventh graders working with sound combinations and line length in addition to removing excess verbiage seems more than enough to tackle.  On the other hand, I would try your best to disavow them of the notion that all poetry must rhyme; otherwise, you will get nothing but greeting card verse.

      I hope the materials contained in this packet prove helpful. I certainly have enjoyed developing and using them over the years! Good luck!  Harper