Tuesday 12 April 2011

End of term

Break time. Sorry I missed the final week of term -- due to the course I have been attending. Will resume blog the last week of April. My college has cleverly decided not to begin my course that week, being realistic about adult learners' priorities... a Bank Holiday one end and royal wedding the other.

If you are new to this blog and looking for exercises or other juice, just look at the labels below and browse through to find useful stuff. Look at the Matrix book's own website too, as there's a new extract each term with an exercise and tutor
support tip. http://www.paxtonpublishing.co.uk

Friday 1 April 2011

Exercises for outcomes: person point-of-view views

Apologies for this dense layout; somehow paragraphing will not work. I just re-blogged as if a new blog and the same bog blog effect occured. Maybe google blogger does not like POV? Hope it improves for next entry.SLK Point of view is a rich seam of storycraft that new creative writers need to understand and can have useful fun exploring. Three of the Learning Outcomes in the Narrative Devices course I wrote are about point of view (let's just call it POV from here on). I'll talk about two here. The Outcomes were Learner should be able to: Recognise person POV and Describe the uses of various person PsOV. So, work for you: dip into your fav fiction and find paras of the various 1st person, 3rd person, close-3rd (how about Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall for that!), the challenging 2nd (Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City the best example I've come across), multiple-3rd person. Assessment Criteria: If you had to prove students understood you'd probably do another handout. First one is a talking/discussing sheet. Second one is theirs to figure out which is which, in pairs/groups, with discussion, whatever. Writing exercise (see below) can also be used to assess learning. Discussion aspect is not just noticing I, he, you, of course, but what effect this has on tone/mood, and how author went about writing it. Exercise: Similar to last week, you could do better to discuss later and DO FIRST. Hand out the paras and get students to transpose... how would the 2nd person sound written as 1st, as 3rd? Have them turn 3rd into 1st, and take the 1st person example and make it 3rd. LOTS of technical challenges and YES they have to change words and all sorts of things. It's all about the power of words, the feel, the effect, the limits, the advantages... Next week, the other kind of POV.