April 17 & 18, 2025

Agenda

• Starter: What’s one difficult decision you have had to make? Why did you choose what you did? Do you feel good about it? Why or why not?

• Assignment—TTTC: "On the Rainy River": Please open today’s assignment: "On the Rainy River" Guided Notes. One of our main goals this quarter is to identify aspects of good writing and practice using them. Your final writing assignment this year will be a personal narrative! So today, we’ll be looking at what makes a personal narrative REALLY good, and we’ll see how O’Brien uses those elements in his narrative.

  Assignment:

  While we read, fill in quotes or paraphrases & citations that show examples of each element of a good personal narrative.

  After we read, you should:

  • Fill in the last column with why you think each quote is or isn’t a good example of that element.

  • Answer the questions below/after the chart.

• Writing Assignment: Descriptive Writing: "On the Rainy River"

  • What can a writer describe?

    The author of a non-fiction text needs to communicate with an audience, the reader or listener. He or she needs to put the audience into a position of understanding, and one of the best ways of doing that is to describe the person, scene, event, or object in such a way that the senses are stimulated.

  • A Place

    The description of a place can be organized in a variety of ways. The writer might think in terms of physical space and paint a big picture the way James Fenimore Cooper does or give details the way a video camera might capture them if shooting from an airplane. A room can be described from to bottom, around the walls, or from furniture to floor.

  • A Person

    A person’s face, gait, character, clothing, and behavior can be described, sometimes in the same passage. Writers often use an effective zoom-in strategy and allow one feature to speak for the rest. For example, a young child’s disheveled clothing could tell a story itself.

  • An Event

    Interwoven with narration, an event or episode can be depicted in a variety of ways. The image of a flame thrower scorching brush could open a description of a memoir of trench warfare, and the smell of burning flesh can both repulse and draw a reader in.

  • Questions to Ask

    • What can I use as a fresh comparison to help the audience see, smell, hear, feel, or taste what I am experiencing?

    • What different methods could I use to organize this description?

    • How will this description help me achieve my overall purpose for the piece?

  • Write a one or two-sentence summary of the pig passage.

  • Description relies on imagery, language that appeals to the senses. Quote passages that appeal to as many senses as possible.

    • Touch

    • Sight

    • Taste

    • Smell

    • Hearing

  • Why does O’Brien use this descriptive passage in this chapter?

  • What is his purpose in including it?