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Reading and Writing 6-8 / Week 05 / Press Day
6/6
Week 05 · Structure and Point of View

Press Day

Press Day: three windows
// Who tells it, and where each scene sits
⏱ about 20 min

Press Day: Three Windows

Press Day again, and this time the porch door is propped open with a brick before anyone arrives.

Rocket notices it and says nothing, which Raven notices, which Nova notices from above.

"Page two," Raven says, laying out the issue. "Press Day, three ways. Yours, mine, and Nova's."

Rocket reads all three in a row. "In mine I am a hero. In yours I am a wall-runner. In Nova's I am a small fast dot."

"All true," says Nova.

"What do you notice when you read them together?" Raven asks.

Rocket thinks about it while he folds. "The porch is bigger than any of us saw," he says. "Fold it in."

  1. A scene is one stretch of action with a job: introduce, build, turn or resolve. Cut it and see what breaks.
  2. The narrator is the voice telling the story. First person says I; third person says he, she or they.
  3. Point of view decides what the reader sees. Two narrators on one event show more than either alone.
  4. Dramatic irony is the gap between what the reader knows and what a character knows. It builds suspense or humor.
  5. The porch is bigger than any one window.
◇ READ NOVA'S VERSION ALOUD
Read your Press Day, by Nova to someone at home.
Ask them to name one thing Nova noticed that a person on the ground would have missed.
Ask them whose version they would want to read next, Rocket's or Raven's, and why.
Give one compliment and one question about anything they read to you.
Swap roles if they have something to read.
PRESS DAY CHECK
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
Rocket notices the brick and says nothing. Who knows about the brick that Rocket does not know they know?
In Nova's version Rocket is a small fast dot. That tells you Nova's point of view is
The porch is bigger than any of us saw means
Which job does the brick scene do for the Press Day story?
What is propping the porch door open in the Press Day story? Type the one word.
WHY THIS EXERCISEA small detail that answers an old problem is one way a scene fits the whole.
SentenceTrue or false?
A first-person narrator uses I.?
Cutting a scene never changes a story.?
Dramatic irony can make a reader laugh.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEEvery scene has a job, so cutting one changes the story. The library answer made us laugh.
Try it
Ask someone at home to tell you about their morning in six sentences.
Then tell the same morning from the point of view of a pet, a window or a shoe.
For a grown-up
This week your student learned how scenes fit a story, how narrators shape it, and what dramatic irony is.
Ask them to tell you one event from two points of view. Listen for what each version leaves out.
Celebrate the noticing, especially when they spot what a narrator skipped.

Three windows, one porch, one issue on every step. Next week you write the story: hook, scenes, dialogue and ending.

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