Characteristics of Genres

1. Characteristics of Genres Drama

2. Objective LI – 34 “I can identify various forms of literature based on their characteristics.” • Poetry • Drama • Short Story • Novel • Autobiography • Biography

3. Essential Questions • What is drama? • What is a script, what is dialogue? • How is drama different than other forms of literature?

4. About Drama • Another word for drama is a “play.” • Dramas are meant to be read aloud and acted out. • Actors read “scripts,” which are lines of dialogue. • The script also includes information about scenes (the setting).

5. Sample Drama YUUKI’S FATHER: You know how she gets before a festival. I had better go to help her. (quickly runs off stage after YUUKI’S MOTHER) [FIRST VILLAGER, VILLAGE BOY and OTHER VILLAGERS have been walking back and forth across the stage behind YUUKI and his family. Now, YUUKI holds the fruit and walks slowly across the stage. He feels the earth shake under his feet but no one else seems to notice. YUUKI spins pinwheels with his arms and wobbles his legs so it looks as if he is trying to stand up on a moving trampoline.] YUUKI: (surprised) WHAT was THAT? The earth MOVED! [The earth moves again. The actors drop what they are carrying and bend their knees as if trying to keep balanced. The movement stops and the villagers start to laugh, relieved.] FIRST VILLAGER: Losing your balance there? SECOND VILLAGER: No way! I have the sure-footedness of a mountain! FIRST VILLAGER: What are you talking about? A mountain has no feet! Text is divided by character’s lines and instructions

6. Sample Drama YUUKI’S FATHER: You know how she gets before a festival. I had better go to help her. (quickly runs off stage after YUUKI’S MOTHER) [FIRST VILLAGER, VILLAGE BOY and OTHER VILLAGERS have been walking back and forth across the stage behind YUUKI and his family. Now, YUUKI holds the fruit and walks slowly across the stage. He feels the earth shake under his feet but no one else seems to notice. YUUKI spins pinwheels with his arms and wobbles his legs so it looks as if he is trying to stand up on a moving trampoline.] YUUKI: (surprised) WHAT was THAT? The earth MOVED! [The earth moves again. The actors drop what they are carrying and bend their knees as if trying to keep balanced. The movement stops and the villagers start to laugh, relieved.] FIRST VILLAGER: Losing your balance there? SECOND VILLAGER: No way! I have the sure-footedness of a mountain! FIRST VILLAGER: What are you talking about? A mountain has no feet! The script gives descriptions of the scene (setting) and shows actors what to do.

7. Closure Tell a neighbor – • What makes dramas different from other genres? How can you tell the difference? • What is another name for drama?

8. Characteristics of Genres Short Stories and Novels

9. Objective LI – 34 “I can identify various forms of literature based on their characteristics.” • Poetry • Drama • Short Story • Novel • Autobiography • Biography

10. Essential Questions • What are short stories? What are novels? • How are they similar and how are they different? • What does fiction have to do with them? • How can we tell if literature is a short story or novel, and not poetry, drama, autobiography, or biography?

11. About Short Stories and Novels • Short Stories and Novels are both typical literature with characters, setting, and a story plot. • They are almost always fiction. • They are stories about things happening – they are not about one person. • Most of what we read is always short stories, and sometimes novels.

12. How are Novels different from Short Stories? • Short Stories are short! You can read them in less than an hour. • Novels are long and have “chapters.” They may take days or weeks to read. • We usually read short stories in class. • You check out novels from the library.

13. Closure • Tell a neighbor what makes short stories and novels different from everything else? • Tell another neighbor about what is the biggest difference between a short story and a novel.

14. Characteristics of Genres Autobiographies and Biographies

15. Objective LI – 34 “I can identify various forms of literature based on their characteristics.” • Poetry • Drama • Short Story • Novel • Autobiography • Biography

16. Essential Questions • What are autobiographies? • What are biographies? • What do they have in common? • What makes them different? • What does non-fiction have to do with them both?

17. About Autobiographies and Biographies • Both of them are non-fiction literature about the life of someone. • They both look like any short story or novel, but they are not stories with plots, but instead are about someone’s real life.

18. Contrasting Autobiographies and Biographies • Autobiographies are written about the author’s own life – the author writes about him/herself. Diaries and journals are examples of autobiography. • (hint – “auto” means “by itself”) • Biographies are written about another person’s life – the author writes about someone else.

19. Contrasting Autobiographies and Biographies • Autobiographies are written in 1st Person point of view (I, me, we, us, my, our…). • Biographies are written in 3rd Person point of view (he, she, they, them, his, her, their…).

20. Who Was Babe Ruth? by Joan Holub Abraham Lincoln by Mary Pope Osborne The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank Through My Eyes – a Quarterback’s Journey by Tim Tebow Examples of Autobiography and Biography Titles

21. Warning! • You probably won’t know if a book is an autobiography or biography just by reading the title. • If the book is all about a person’s life, and it’s told using words like: “I”, “my”, “we”, and other 1st person pronouns, it is an autobiography. • If the book is all about a person’s life, and it’s told using words like: “he”, “she”, “his”, and other 3rd person pronouns, it is a biography.

22. Closure • What is common between autobiographies and biographies? How are they different from all the other genres? • How are autobiographies different from biographies? (hint – what does “auto” mean?)