High School Tutorial Archives - Page 4 of 8 - Writing with Sharon Watson-Easy-to-use Homeschool Writing and Literature Curriculum

How Point of View Changes the Feel of a Story

A story’s point of view (POV) can affect how the story feels.

For instance, The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis is written in the third-person omniscient POV: The narrator knows everything, even things that some of the characters do not. The invisible narrator in omniscient POV can tell readers what one character is feeling or thinking and then turn right around and ramble around in another character’s heart and mind and report that to us.

The omniscient point of view is out of fashion today. It followed all the major characters and reported on their happenings. We today want to journey through a story with only one or two main characters because it feels more personal that way.

Here’s a portion of the second paragraph of “The Wood Between the Worlds” in The Magician’s Nephew. The protagonist Digory has just arrived in that forest by means of a magic ring:

Violence and Martin Luther King Jr.

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for racial equality in the 1950s and early 1960s before he was assassinated, but he did not advocate violence as a means of reaching this goal.

Read the following excerpt taken from Stride Toward Freedom, written by him in 1958:

The Call of the Wild and Description

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

From Sunny to Frigid

Buck is a dog who grew up in sunny San Diego, California, but suddenly finds himself thrust into the frigid world of the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon Territory, Canada, in the late 1890s. You can read about him in Jack London’s The Call of the Wild.

Here’s Buck and his first encounter with . . . well, I’ll let you figure it out:

Benefits of Bike Riding: Brainstorm and Organize

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Is it tough to come up with ideas when your teacher gives you a writing assignment?

And if you have ideas, is it hard to plan and put them into an effective order with main and supporting points? This prompt will help with these problems.

Many students feel that brainstorming is a waste of time, but you’ll see otherwise in this prompt as you brainstorm the benefits of bike riding. Also, you’ll practice organizing your ideas so they make sense. These worksheets will make your tasks much, much easier.

Veterans Day Compare and Contrast

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

We honor our U. S. veterans on Veterans Day every year.

Do you know someone who has served in the U. S. Armed Forces: Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, National Guard, or Reserves? Chances are you know quite a few men and women who have served, defended, and protected our country and those of our allies.

Working in the Armed Forces is very different from working in the private sector. Let’s explore this idea.

Proofreading: The Good News and the Bad News

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Proofreading is not a happy activity. It takes attention to detail and maybe even some groaning.

After all, you feel as if your first draft is enough. You’re done. Finished.

Students tell me that writing the first draft and then proofreading it is like writing their paper twice.

The Bad News

.Here’s the bad news: The skill of proofreading your own papers is essential to the writing process. Why?

First, you learn to write more effectively.

Second, you show respect for your teachers by handing in a well-thought-out paper with few mistakes.

And third, you begin to understand that there is an audience at the other end of your essays. You aren’t writing simply to keep yourself busy; you’re writing to communicate, educate, explain, persuade, or entertain.

The Good News

Here’s the good news: You’re about to learn four sure-fire ways to catch more mistakes when you proofread..

Eavesdrop Your Way to Tension and Dialog in Stories

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

I was shopping one day last week when I heard an elderly woman say to her daughter, “I’d like to find a white sweater.”

Her daughter came back with, “Oh, Mother, you always do this to me. You know we can’t find white after Labor Day.”

I thought, Hmm. That daughter is having trouble with her mother.

A few minutes later, in the same store, I heard a 30-something granddaughter talking with her elderly grandmother. “Oh, Grandma,” she said,

Courage: Show, Don’t Tell

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

“You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage
to lose sight of the shore.” –Christopher Columbus

Show, Don’t Tell

When an author wants to let readers know that a character is, say, courageous, she doesn’t write, “Chris was courageous.” Instead, she sets up a situation in which the character has to act bravely, even if he or she feels fearful, showing just how courageous the character is.

Christopher Columbus showed courage by doing something—crossing an ocean when many believed he would fall off the edge of the earth into oblivion.

“Show, don’t tell” is an important element of writing stories. You don’t want to insult your readers by telling them how characters feel or what a character is like. You want to show them by

Paragraph Chart: High School

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Many students tell me that after they do the hard work of coming up with an idea, they do not know what to put in the paragraph or even how to write the paragraph.

Is this an issue for you as well? Could you use a little help in this area?

{Looking for the MIDDLE SCHOOL version of this tutorial? >>}

In-text Citations for High School

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

You’re writing your essay and everything’s going great until you realize you need to let readers know where you got a certain fact. You aren’t using a bibliography, footnotes, or works cited page because this is just an essay, not a report or research paper.

You don’t want to plagiarize. Putting someone else’s fact or idea in your essay without any citation would definitely be plagiarism.

What are you going to do?

From Sunny to Frigid

The Bad News

The Good News

Show, Don’t Tell

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