Let’s use our imagination!

Narratives are always fun to write because they are a fiction text and you can use your imagination and create some interesting characters and new places. We have all been enjoying writing our narrative’s this term.

We began by looking at the structure of a narrative.

Orientation – which includes the who, what, when, where and why

Complication or Problem – every good story needs a problem to solve!

Series of events – at least 3 different events that occur where the character is trying to solve their problem.

Resolution- the problem is finally solved.

We then watched a clip of a student reading a very popular children’s book called the Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister so that we could see an example of how a narrative is structured.

We also looked at the type of words used in narratives so that the stories are interesting. These words are adjectives and they help describe people, places and events. Mrs Baldwin often says that when a good writer has include lots of adjectives, you can picture in your head what the characters and places look like. It is like a movie being played in your mind and the more adjectives that are used, the more interesting and entertaining the story is.

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From there we begun writing our own narratives. We made sure that we included lots of adjectives by using a list that we have in our work books and our imagination.Once the first drafts were  edited and checked, we typed our stories on a Word Document and made them into a book using our own drawings.

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We also created blurbs for our stories.

What is a blurb?

A blurb is a short summary or description of  a book. The blurb does not tell the story: it tells the potential buyer or reader about the story

As a class we discussed why most authors include blurbs at the back of their books.

What is the purpose of a blurb?

A blurb is a great way to promote a book and make a person want to read or even buy it. Without a blurb it can be very hard to find out what a particular book is about without having to read the entire story.

We decided that a blurb is very important part of a book. Like the front cover it needs to capture a readers interest and make people want to read the book you have written. For our class we want to capture the judges interest for the Mayoral Make-A-Book competition so a well written blurb is something we decided we wanted to include on the back cover of our books.

Next we discussed what a well written blurb looks like. We looked at a few examples from different books that we have read before. We noticed that some blurbs were a lot longer than others and each had similar writing techniques to draw the reader into reading their book.

Techniques of writing a good blurb…

  • Keeping it short and sweet. You need to draw the reader in quickly and hold their attention. Use key words like ‘secret’, ‘mystery’, ‘betrayal’, ‘revenge’, ‘magic’ to whet a reader’s appetite
  • You don’t need to describe the whole plot in the blurb, just give the reader an idea of who the main character or characters are and the main problem they will face in the story. Keep your blurb simple yet interesting.
  • The blurb should be written in a similar voice to the book. If it’s a comedy, the blurb needs to reflect this.
  • Adding a question in the blurb gets the reading thinking and wondering about your story which may lead to them wanting to find out the answer to your question by reading the book.

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We have entered all our books into the Mayoral Make-a-Book Literacy Challenge 2016. Entries closed Friday 26th of August!

When we receive them back from the judges we will use them to create an iMovie.

Well done everyone for such a great effort, you all worked so hard and Mrs Baldwin is very proud of all of you! 

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In early November the winners will be presented with with their prize by the Mayor.  Each winner will receive a lovely book with commemorative bookplate and a certificate. One lucky winner from each year level will also be chosen to have their book featured on the Charles Sturt website as an ebook for a whole year!

Good luck everyone and well done again!

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What have you learnt about writing a Narrative?

What are you enjoying most about making your own book?

Have you entered in the Mayoral Make-A-Book Literacy Challenge before?

8 thoughts on “Let’s use our imagination!

  1. sup kids it’s Finn here i really liked the meral make a book because we got to write boss storys but lachlan rekt ours reply to me to answer this question WHICH BOOK DO YOU THINK WILL WINN!!!

    sorry kids but i gotta run latea

    – Finn

  2. 1 l have learned that it takes a while to make a 10 star Narrative

    2 i enjoyed writing on the computer because i find it relaxing

    3 last year i entered my book i was working with tyler.

  3. Hi Miss Baldwin
    I learnt to always use adjectives and that if you work hard your book will be amazing. I enjoyed getting to work with a friend. Me and Sophia worked really well together as we both had brain bubbling ideas.I haven’t entered before but some of my siblings have so i know about the challenge. I hope all books that the school entered did well.Me and Sophia dedicated our book to some of our closets friends Alicia, Gianna, Ambah for being such great friends.

    From Tia

  4. Dear Ms Baldwin

    you always have to have a problem. I enjoyed partnership with Steven. No I have never entered my mayoral make a book til now

    From Dylan

  5. Dear Mrs Baldwin,

    what i enjoyed about making a meral make a book was it was changing and i like changing things.

    i was really hard but worth it.

    not i have not.

    from Sophie

  6. dear mrs baldwin,

    i really enjoyed making the book with my friend they really put in the work.
    we faced the fact that we wanted to do different things
    but in the end we got it done and it looks good.

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