Fiction/Non-Fiction Lesson
ON THE BOARD:
Fiction – Writing based on the imagination of the author.
“Truth” is intended to be emotional/psychological/spiritual.
Examples: Novels
Short Stories
Plays
Poems – metaphors; similes (like, as)
Non-Fiction – Writing based on provable facts. “Truth” is
measurable and objective. Non-fiction may also be “moving,”
but its primary function is to relate true facts.
BASIC
STRUCTURAL
ELEMENT:
All of these have
a Beginning,
Middle,
and End
Examples: Biography
Autobiography
Textbooks
How-To-Books
Newspaper articles
Journal articles
Biography – the story of a person’s life written by another person
Autobiography – the story of a person’s life written by himself/herself
Autobiographical – adjective meaning that an author’s writing is based on or suggestive of his/her life.
“The Chute” is an autobiographical poem.
"The Chute"
When I was a kid my father built a
hole down through the center of the house.
It started in the upstairs closet, a
black, square mouth like a well
with a lid on it, it plummeted down
behind the kitchen wall, and the raw
pine cloaca tip of it was
down in the basement where the twisted wicker
basket lay on the cement floor,
so when someone dropped in laundry on top of it, it would
drop with the speed of sheer falling—in the
kitchen you'd hear that whisk of pure
descent behind the wall. And halfway
down there was an electric fixture for the
doorbell—that bell my father would ring and
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ring years later when he stood at the door with that
blood on him, like a newborn's caul,
ringing ringing to enter. But back
then he was only halfway down, a
wad of sheets stuck in the chute,
he could still fix the doorbell when it busted.
He'd stand his kids in front of him,
three skinny scared braggart kids,
and run his gaze over them, a
surgeon running his eyes over the tray,
and he'd select a kid, and take that kid by the
ankles and slowly feed that kid
down the chute. First you'd do a handstand on the
lip of it and then he’d lower you in,
the smell of pine and dirty laundry,
his grip on your ankles like the steel he sold,
he'd lower you until your whole body was in it
and you'd find the little wires, red and
blue, like a vein and a nerve, and you'd tape them together.
We thought it was such an honor to be chosen,
and like all honors it was mostly terror, not
only the blood in your head like a sac of
worms in wet soil, but how could you believe he would
not let go? He would joke about it,
standing there, holding his kid like a
bottle brush inside a bottle, or the
way they drown people, he'd lower us down as if
dipping us into the darkness before birth
and he'd pretend to let go—he loved to hear
passionate screaming in the narrow space—
how could you trust him? And then if you were
his, half him, your left hand maybe and your
left foot dipped in the gleaming
murky liquor of his nature, how could you
trust yourself? What would it feel like
to be on the side of life? How did the
good know they were good, could they look at their
hand and see, under the skin, the
greenish light? We hung there in the dark
and yet, you know, he never dropped us
or meant to, he only liked to say he would,
so although it's a story with some cruelty in it,
finally it's a story of love
and release, the way the father pulls you out of nothing
and stands there foolishly grinning.
—Sharon Olds
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EXPLAIN:
We can assume that this house existed, and the chute existed, and that her father really held them upside
down inside the chute, and that he threatened to drop them headfirst into it, BUT, she is not writing this
poem to tell you THAT. She is using this incident to convey a message about childhood fears (a scary
parent, a home with scary places, etc. TRUST is big issue here)
Identify:
1. Unknown words
2. Basic structure of Beg, Mid, End
3. Elements that constitute the “story” part of the poem.
4. The words or phrases that seem to be the author telling us something about this event. Something we
might share with her or learn from her.
5. HOMEWORK: Identify in “Summer Solstice” the same elements. Write them down on a separate
sheet of paper.
a) Where is the Beg, Mid and End (draw lines on the poem to mark the divisions)?
b) What is the “story” part of the poem?
c) What is the author’s message to us about this event or experience?
Fiction (continued)
Vocabulary Lesson
ON BOARD:
Vocabulary (leave room under this word to put the rules)
How do we deal with unknown vocabulary words?
Maria is morose.
Although we sprayed the lawn with 1, 2, 4, - triclorohexane, the weeds still grew.
EXPLAIN:
What is it you were always told to do when you did not know a word? (Look it up in the dictionary)
From now on, you GUESS using the context in which the word is used to figure its meaning. This turns
on your brain. Guessing the meaning forces you to think about the word, to consider the possibilities,
which will increase your ability to remember the word in the future. When you get good at it you will
guess more accurately, but right or wrong, guessing is good.
ADD TO BOARD:
Bill is always cheerful, but Maria is morose
Because we sprayed the lawn with 1, 2, 4, - triclorohexane, the weeds still grew.
(under “Vocabulary”)
1. Guess what the word means based on the context in which the word is used.
2. Reread the sentence with your “guess.”
3. Keep reading
4. When finished reading, check guesses in the dictionary.
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Fiction
ON BOARD:
“Summer Solstice, New York City”
Summer Solstice, New York City
By the end of the longest day of the year he could not stand it,
he went up the iron stairs through the roof of the building
and over the soft, tarry surface
to the edge, put one leg over the complex green tin cornice
and said if they came a step closer that was it.
Then the huge machinery of the earth began to work for his life,
the cops came in their suits blue-grey as the sky on a cloudy evening,
and one put on a bullet-proof vest, a
black shell around his own life,
life of his children's father, in case
the man was armed, and one, slung with a
rope like the sign of his bounden duty,
came up out of a hole in the top of the neighboring building
like the gold hole they say is in the top of the head,
and began to lurk toward the man who wanted to die.
The tallest cop approached him directly,
softly, slowly, talking to him, talking, talking,
while the man's leg hung over the lip of the next world
and the crowd gathered in the street, silent, and the
hairy net with its implacable grid was
unfolded near the curb and spread out and
stretched as the sheet is prepared to receive a birth.
Then they all came a little closer
where he squatted next to his death, his shirt
glowing its milky glow like something
growing in a dish at night in the dark in a lab and then
everything stopped
as his body jerked and he
stepped down from the parapet and went toward them
and they closed on him, I thought they were going to
beat him up, as a mother whose child has been
lost will scream at the child when its found, they
took him by the arms and held him up and
leaned him against the wall of the chimney and the
tall cop lit a cigarette
in his own mouth, and gave it to him, and
then they all lit cigarettes, and the
red, glowing ends burned like the
tiny campfires we lit at night
back at the beginning of the world.
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Sharon Olds, Strike Sparks: Selected Poems, 1980-2002, Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
Is this poem autobiographical?
Looking for: a) Beginning, Middle, End
b) Story Elements OR Given Circumstances OR What Happened Here
c) Author’s point of View – What’s the message in the bottle
What does “Summer Solstice” mean?
Why use this for the title?
What could it mean in relation to the poem?
Review for Quiz # 1
1. All Vocab Words
2. Define Fiction and non-Fiction
Give Examples
3. What are the Basic Structural elements for all fiction and non-fiction
4. Tellbacks – Why do we do them – to increase comprehension and memory
How do we do them – by saying OUTLOUD all the DETAIL remembered in any
ORDER remembered.
VOCABULARY LIST
Cumulative
TBA
Rebuke
Dupe
Caul
ASAP
Plummet
Murky
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