From our analysis of the chosen books we found that they all generally follow some sort of setting, action, conflict, climax, resolution, conclusion format. Without this sort of story shape a book is not engaging or very interesting to read. An example of a book that does not have a very exciting story shape is The Great Round-The-World Balloon Race by Sue Scullard.
The book is based on the story plot of voyage and return and is done in an unintrusive narration style from an objective point of view. This makes for a pretty standard text that is not very engaging to read.
Another book we looked at was the autobiography The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell by Marilyn Manson. It was interesting to see that in an autobiography each chapter is a new story being told by the author about their life and therefore each chapter has its very own setting, action, conflict and climax. However in this case the climax does not resolve and the next chapter starts the cycle again.
We concluded that it is important to have conflicts and resolutions to make the text interesting. We also felt that the basic story shape is used the majority of the time because it is an effective method of keeping the reader engaged and it is fundamentally what makes or breaks a book.
'Uno's Garden' followed the traditional narrative style as it starts by setting the scene and builds to a few conflicts. Once several problems or conflicts have been established there is a climax where the people in the city realise there are no animals left and they live without trees. After this happens, most of the people leave and the animals are free to flourish once more as Uno's children and grandchildren help to conserve the forest.
ReplyDeleteAs discussed in class the style of narrative that this book uses is very effective in grasping the attention of the reader and also keeps them interested as there is a sense of suspense in a story when this style of narrative is used.
Although there are many books that make use of other styles of narrative such as the 'Home- Away' model I believe that the traditional narrative style is much more gripping.
Also discussed within this weeks lesson was the use of noun and verb groups. As a class we went into further detail to discuss that nouns include the participants and the verb is the process.
ReplyDeleteThe shapes of narratives are very important as it can determine whether a story is engaging, fun or gripping. Although some books(such as a number book or ABC book) do not have story shapes or plots, whihc shows that have an orientation, complication and resolution is not essential.