Elements of Narrative Text
Before developing During Reading strategies for narrative text, you'll need to know the structure, or elements, of it first. The elements of narrative text are:
- vocabulary
- character
- plot
- setting
- theme
Vocabulary - For both primary and secondary students this element of narrative text is crucial to comprehension. As students encounter more complex pieces of literature, they will find unfamiliar English words, dialect, archaic expressions, figures of speech and idioms that puzzle native English speakers and become huge hurdles for English language learners.
Character - The personality of each character plays an important role in the story. Students need to be guided to literal descriptions of each character and inferences that can be made about each character, using specific text from the story. Using a character map/web can help students understand how to use what is written and background knowledge to construct a "picture" of each character. Creating character maps fairly early in a story may help students make informed predictions, which in turn, engages them in the story as they read to confirm or refute their predictions.
Plot - Very simple stories can usually be explained using the Beginning - Middle - End story structure. In the beginning you usually find out: 1) who the story is about, 2) where the story takes place, and 3) what the problem is. In the middle, you usually find three attempts at solving the problem. In the end, you usually find the solution to the problem. Most stories are variations of this simple structure.
Setting - This important component is usually found in the beginning of the story and provides clues regarding some of the background information the reader needs to understand the story. If the setting is sufficiently foreign to the student, the teacher will need to build background information to enhance comprehension.
Theme - The overall lesson or observation regarding human nature is, many times, the theme of a story or book. Specific types of themes can be found in different genres. For example, fairy tales usually have the theme that everything works out fine - "happily ever after." Students must be able to summarize and generalize to recognize the theme of a story.