Author's Craft

We have just started a new reading unit called "Examining Author's Craft." To examine an author's craft means to look at how the author put the words and phrases and sentences together -- looking at the craft - the actual building or construction - of the writing. For examples, you may notice interesting use of sentence length or sentence structure, use of puncutation or lack of it, the decision to make one section heavy in dialogue and another void of (without) dialogue, or particularly short or long paragraphs or chapters.

This week's homework will require two (2) responses and no (0) comments. For your responses, please describe a section of your book that contains a writing craft move or decision that you notice your author has made. Ideally, you can put the section in your response the way I do in the Stargirl tests. Then, describe what the author did in her/his writing that you observed and why or how this affects the reading of the text.

PLEASE NOTE: Author's craft is not, "He made the narrator speak." In fiction writing, an author makes everything happen. I want you to talk about the writing, not the content of the story.