Standards
ELA7R1.1e Identify events that advance plot/explain flashback
Warm Up: Using Ladders to Success students will take a pretest on the skill of compare and contrast on pg. 63.
Homework
- Read your historical fiction book for 30 minutes. This book should be read by 12/14.
Activities
- Students will complete the following lesson:
Connection: We've spent the last week talking about plot. Who can
remind me what plot is? ( the sequence of events in a story.)
We mapped plot on a story map, and we also examined a bunch of
different possible plot diagrams that you could use to represent the way
stories and books progress.
Today we're going to stick with that idea of plot as we discuss
flashbacks.
Sometimes you'll be reading along, and suddenly the author will throw you for a real loop by puttinga flashback right into the middle of an otherwise chronological plot. A flashback is an interruption in the action to show a scene that took place earlier.
Flashback -- An interruption in the action to show a scene that took place earlier
Below is an example of what a flashback looks like in an example essay.
My name is Andrea. Lately I have been working in a veterinary clinic
with one of my best friends from high school. From the very beginning we
both knew we wanted to work with animals. I guess we just didn’t
realize that it would take us so long to own our own clinic. Eight years
of college is a long time, especially when you have a young girl at home
to take care of. I suppose if I wasn’t married, everything would be
even harder though. At least I am lucky enough to work at a place where
I am happy. It feels good to be able to help save an animal’s life. It
was only an hour ago that a lady walked in with a bloody cat. She told
me that it had been hit by a car. I have worked with many injured cats
before, and I knew exactly what to do. I remember when…
My seventh grade year of junior high was very enlightening for me. I
knew that ever since I was young, that when I got into junior high and
high school, I wanted to take classes so I could be a vet. Back then I
didn’t know that these classes would be different than classes I had
ever taken before. We were preparing the frogs. I was a little afraid of
what I might see. What if I didn’t know what to do? What if I got a
bad grade? Would I have to change my career now? I was worried about a
lot of things. I guess I was just worried that I was going to find out I
couldn’t do what I had been dreaming of for many years.
Right after P.E. at around 10:00 A.M., I walked into science class.
Jessica Smith was my assigned lab partner. We had been friends for a
long time, ever since she moved into town. We both wanted to be vets,
and we were great students. Our science teacher knew that even though we
were girls, we would be great at dissection. After this A+ I would no
longer have to worry about whether or not I would be able to cut open an
animal to look down at its insides and wonder what to do next.
We sat down at the table, the teacher brought out the frogs, and then
she passed them around. The room had an awful aroma all around, and at
first everyone complained about it. After everyone was settled in, we
pinned down our frog. Jessica and I decided to split the tasks on what
to find and help each other if needed. I let her start by taking the
scalpel and cutting the poor amphibian straight down its belly.
The cat gave out a loud moan and I realized this feline was bleeding
intensively. As it looked at me with those eyes of a helpless animal
whose life was in my hands, I knew I would never forget the first time I
looked at that frog. I knew that someday I would be saving creatures.
The very first step of my occupation started in seventh grade. It was
hard to believe everything I do everyday, all the lives that I save, and
all the people that thank me for saving their beloved pets, all started
out in my seventh grade science class.
Ping! Ping! Ping! The sound of the hammer against the aluminum body echoes through the shop. I am getting ready to go out this weekend with by Bob Pierce number 84 Late Model. The body is a little bit beaten up from the previous weekend racing, but other than that, the car is in good shape. It will be ready to go racing within a few more hours. As soon as my crew gets back from lunch, they will get everything else done for me. I am getting ready to go clean out my trailer now and get it ready to put the car in. As I start walking out, my wife, Tori, calls me into the office in the shop to ask me a few questions about the parts I need and where they need to be ordered from. As I was telling her what to order, I looked up at the wall at all my pictures of all the race cars I have had though out the years. I remember when…
I remember when I was the crew chief instead of the driver. I started helping Bob build Modifieds the winter before. I went there to learn everything I could. After about two weeks of me working for him after
school, he asked me if I wanted to go racing with him all summer. He said he would teach me all I needed to know about a race car. So in the meantime, I helped him build Modifieds. When spring came around I
started helping Bob with his Late Models. We went all over the country, anywhere from North Carolina to California. We had a great time. We won a lot of the big races. The World 100 was coming up soon, and with me helping him all spring, we got used to the way each other did things. It worked out really well. I started to know what Bob wanted done to the car without him even telling me. It was fun meeting all the drivers and helping Bob. It was a lot of work, but we had a good time together. When the World 100 came up we got a little nervous. It is one of the biggest races of the year for the dirt Late Models. When we got there, there were only about 100 drivers signed in. By the time practice was getting close the next day, there were almost 200 drivers there. Bob went out for practice, and he came in and told me what was going on and what to do to the car. I made a few changes, and he went back out and did really
well. So we left the car alone until the next day when it was time to qualify. We had to change the car since the track changes overnight. We put some harder tires on and changed the right rear shock. Bob went out 48th qualifier. He ended up qualifying 12th which wasn’t too bad. Out of pure luck, we got to start on the 2nd row inside the heat race. Bob got second in his heat, which put us in a transfer spot for the feature. We looked at the board, and he had to start 17th out of 26 cars in the feature. The green flag dropped, and Bob dropped back to 22nd. This was expected though as soon as the tires got warmed up, the car started coming around and he slowly made his way to the front of the pack. Finally on the 87th lap of the race he had worked his way up to 3rd. Soon after he passed Scott Bloomquist for 2nd place, and then he was in a dual withDon O’Neal. Bob and Don battled for the lead for about 10 laps. Finally
Don’s tires were burnt up from battling with Bob so hard, and Bob just took off. He pulled away by almost a half a straightaway, and he took the checkered flag on lap 100. It was a good, hard race and fun to be there for. Bob won a little over $100,000 for the race. Once Bob pulled back to the trailer, some guys came up with a five gallon jug of ice water and dumped it all over Bob to congratulate him. We all partied all night and the next day. It was the first time Bob had won the World 100. The other times he always ran into bad luck. It was a night I will never forget.
“Honey! Hello!”
“Oh sorry, Babe. What were you saying?”
She tried to explain everything she asked once before, but I was still
thinking about that night at Eldora. What a great night! Now Bob stops
by my shop every once in awhile and we just talk about racing all night. We will never run out of racing stories for each other. The one that comes up most though is the night at Eldora.
Now, if we're diagramming plot like we did all last week, what would be the major events? What is wrong with this order of events, however? It is an event that happened earlier that the narrator is only now remembering.)
So what should our story map really look like? (using stickie notes , 1 stickie note for each major event and the time line, students will put the events of each essay in chronlogical order)
Flashbacks can be sneaky and tricky, but we can't let them get the bestof us. Let's try another one with table partners. It's extra tricky!
Link: Now it's your turn. As you read today, what will you be doing?
Closing: Today we continued our discussion of plot, the sequence of events in a story, and story diagramming. But we added to the mix the literary device known as a flashback, an interruption in the present action to show a scene that took place earlier. And we talked about what you should do if you're diagramming a story and you come upon a flashback. You should put the flashback in the story diagram wherever the actual even occurred, which probably means inserting something a good deal earlier.
It's time for million dollar question!
1. What is a flashback?
2. What is the difference between an internal conflict and an external conflict?
- Compare and contrast story diagrams and plot diagrams
