Marian CO #3: Olivia James' Composition Class

In Ms. James' Composition class, students were working on drafting a working title for a narrative essay.  Ms. James explained how a "working" title may change while you write your composition, but it provides a focus for your writing. Students were provided two titles: What in the World am I Doing here? and What was I Thinking?. They were allowed to use one of these titles or to create a unique title from a combination of the two. The composition was to be written as a narrative, meaning a true event that happened to the author.  Ms. James explained the key to the narrative is a clear sequence of events that brings the reader along with you, illuminates the senses, and helps the reader feel or imagine things as they read. To show this, Ms. James read two separate passages and then guided a discussion of each following the reading. This helped students understand the concept of a narrative and how to capture and retain the reader's attention. From the examples, students were able to identify the strong use of adjectives and the placement of events in a structured order. Following the readings, the class was given time to work on their five paragraph narrative essay.  It appeared to me that most of the students grasped the concept of a narrative and found listening to a narrative and discussing the task of writing was much easier than the actual writing.  That is not a surprising conclusion, but when observed in a classroom setting it becomes very clear and illustrates why the systematic teaching of concepts in use is a valuable teaching method.