ESL002: Intermediate English as a Second Language

Narrative means storytelling. The story can be fact (real), or it can be fiction (made up). When you read a narrative account, or story, think about the following elements of the narrative.

The setting

(a) Time

• When does the story take place? Is it past, present, or future?
• Are the events told in chronological order (the order in which they occur), or are there flashbacks?

(b) Place

• Where does the story take place? Is the place significant to the story?

The characters

• How would you describe the main characters? Think about age, job, appearance, personality, and any other information you have.
• What is their relationship like with other people in the story?
• Do any of the characters change as the story progresses? Does anyone learn anything?

The plot

• Is there a conflict in the story? A problem to be solved? A decision to be made?
• Where is the climax (the most important piece of action, or the turning point)?
• How does the story end? Is the ending satisfactory to everyone?

The elements above are the basic features of a story. When reading narratives, you can also think about the following to help you better understand what you read.

The meaning and purpose

• What can be learned from the story?
• Why did the storyteller tell this story?

Your personal reaction

• How did the story make you feel? What emotions did it inspire in you?
• Does the story remind you of anything else you have read or heard about?

This tutorial reviews the main elements of a story.

Timelines

As we just learned, an important element of a story is the plot. The plot is the series of actions described in the story. To better understand a narrative, we can sequence, the events in the order in which they happened.

When reading, look for clues that tell you when the actions happen. The verb conjugations you learned in Unit 1 and certain signal phrases like "last week" and "while" will tell you if an event happened in the past or is happening now. Paying attention to these clues will help you follow the order of events in a story and create its timeline.

Review these two slides on creating timelines. If you are on a mobile device, you can swipe to navigate the slides.

Now that we know more about text features and being active readers, let's put this knowledge into practice.

Source: Adapted from Tania Pattison, https://www.nscc.ca/library/docs/copyright/oer/otb197-01-college-skills-intermediate-english.pdf
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Video by David Hunter
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.