Australian literature, the body of literatures, both oral and written, produced in Australia.
Perhaps more so than in other countries, the literature of Australia characteristically expresses collective values. Even when the literature deals with the experiences of an individual, those experiences are very likely to be estimated in terms of the ordinary, the typical, the representative. It aspires on the whole to represent integration rather than disintegration. It does not favour the heroicism of individual action unless this shows dogged perseverance in the face of inevitable defeat. Although it may express a strong ironic disapproval of collective mindlessness, the object of criticism is the mindlessness rather than the conformity.
This general proposition holds true for both Indigenous Australians and those descended from later European arrivals, though the perception of what constitutes the community is quite radically different in these two cases. The white Australian community is united in part by its sense of having derived from foreign cultures, primarily that of England, and in part by its awareness of itself as a settler society with a continuing celebration of pioneer values and a deep attachment to the land. For Aboriginal peoples in their traditional cultures, story, song, and legend served to define allegiances and relationships both to others and to the land that nurtured them. For modern Aboriginal people, written literature has been a way of both claiming a voice and articulating a sense of cohesion as a people faced with real threats to the continuance of their culture.
Aboriginal narrative: the oral tradition
When first encountered by Europeans, Australian Aboriginal peoples did not have written languages (individual words were collected from first contact, but languages as systems were not written down until well into the 20th century). Their songs, chants, legends, and stories, however, constituted rich oral literature, and, since the Aboriginal peoples had no common language, these creations were enormously diverse. Long unavailable to or misunderstood by non-Aboriginal people, their oral traditions appear (from researches undertaken in the last half of the 20th century) to be of considerable subtlety and complexity.
The oral literature of Aboriginal peoples has an essentially ceremonial function. It supports the fundamental Aboriginal beliefs that what is given cannot be changed and that the past exists in an eternal present, and it serves to relate the individual and the landscape to the continuing spiritual influence of the Dreaming (or Dreamtime)—widely known as the Alcheringa (or Altjeringa), the term used by the Aboriginal peoples of central Australia—a mythological past in which the existing natural environment was shaped and humanized by ancestral beings. While the recitation of the song cycles and narratives is to some extent prescribed, it also can incorporate new experience and thus remain applicable—both part of the past (called up by the Ancestors) and part of the present.
Aboriginal oral tradition may be public (open to all members of a community and often a kind of entertainment) or sacred (closed to all but initiated members of one or the other sex). Narratives of the public sort range from stories told by women to young children (mostly elementary versions of creation stories—also appropriate for tourists and amateur anthropologists) to the recitation of song cycles in large gatherings (known as corroborees). Even the most uncomplicated narratives of the Dreaming introduce basic concepts about the land and about what it is that distinguishes right behaviour from wrong. When children are old enough to prepare for their initiation ceremonies, the stories become more elaborate and complex. Among the sacred songs and stories are those that are men’s business and those that are women’s business; each is forbidden to the eyes and ears of the other sex and to the uninitiated.
The chief subject of Aboriginal narratives is the land. As Aboriginal people travel from place to place, they (either informally or ceremonially) name each place, telling of its creation and of its relation to the journeys of the Ancestors. This practice serves at least three significant purposes: it reinforces their knowledge of local geography—that is, the food routes, location of water holes, places of safety, places of danger, the region’s terrain, and so on—and it also serves a social function (sometimes bringing large clans together) and a religious or ritual function.
Many of the stories have to do with the journeys of the Ancestors and the “creation sites,” places at which they created different clans and animals. Other stories concern contests between Ancestor figures for power and knowledge. A sequence of stories or songs—a story track or song line—identifies the precise route taken by an Ancestor figure. Knowledge and recitation of the journey of each totemic figure are the responsibility of that figure’s totemic clan. (Members of an immediate biological family belong to different totems, or Dreamings. Totem membership can be determined in various ways, from association with a locale to an acknowledgment of spiritual kinship.) Because an Ancestor’s journey is often traced over vast stretches of land, only a segment of the entire song cycle or story is known to a particular group. These are exchanged at meeting points, and, though the songs may be sung in a different language, an Ancestor’s story contains musical elements that make it clearly identifiable to all members of that totem, from whatever part of the country. Song lines and story tracks can be traced over the entire country. In this way oral literature sustains the sense of continuity between the clans as well as between the present and the time of creation.
Important stories that deal with the activities of perhaps just one or two of the ancestral figures and belong to adjacent areas and adjacent clans may constitute a song cycle. Some of these stories do not allow for variation and constitute a formal literature with precise structures and particular language. For example, repetition is an important structural device. Verb forms and tenses indicate the unchanging yet ongoing relationship between the ancestral past and the present. The persistent theme of transformation, a theme characteristic of many oral literatures, is for the people a way of access to their mythic past, to the eternal present of the Dreaming.
The Djanggawul song cycle recounts in 188 songs the journey of three ancestral beings, a Brother and Two Sisters, in the Millingimbi region. Those Ancestors created all that territory. Water holes become sacred because there they created the people of a particular totem or there an important aspect of the law was established. Places acquire a name; they come into being. Much of the cycle is about fertility and increase and about the relations between men and women. For example, men steal from the Sisters the sacred objects and the power that goes with them, and, while that legend might appear to concede the dominance of men in tribal practice (according to custom), it also acknowledges women as the original source of power and knowledge.
Above all, the oral literature of Aboriginal peoples is involved with performance. It is not simply a verbal performance. Traditional song is very often associated with dance, and storytelling with gesture and mime. Or stories may be accompanied by diagrams drawn in the sand and then brushed away again. Each song, each narrative, is in effect acted out. Storytellers will customarily announce who they are, where they come from, and what their relation to the story is, as though they are its agent. They may provide a frame for their story. They use the common devices of oral literature such as repetition and enumeration and formulaic expression. But they always take care with their songs and stories; they are as careful with imagery and symbolism, with the figures of speech, as they are with other aspects of ceremony.
The intention of the song man or storyteller is not to assert a sense of individuality but to identify the continuing validity of the song or the story. There may be direct address to the listener (or, in more recent times, the reader), but this is a device of inclusion. It is also a stratagem to ensure understanding, providing the opportunity for explanation and elaboration whenever that is desirable.
Increasingly, traditional Aboriginal peoples have permitted their songs and stories to be collected and recorded for the time when the young people, who they feel show little interest in their traditional literature at present, return to the old ways of custom. The non-Aboriginal person’s knowledge of this traditional literature relies almost entirely on printed translation. What non-Aboriginal people are permitted to read is therefore at least twice removed from its proper context—once by its metamorphosis from oral to written and again by its translation. Even with the most sympathetic mind and the most comprehensive set of footnotes, the non-Aboriginal person has little means of assessing the relation of custom to individual performance. Further, there remains the residual perception of the nature of traditional Aboriginal literature formed on a number of early, well-intentioned collections of myths and legends, such as Catherine Langloh Parker’s Australian Legendary Tales (1896) or Alan Marshall’s People of the Dreamtime (1952), where the stories are reshaped to meet European notions of narrative design and structure.
Anthropologists Catherine H. and Ronald M. Berndt were the first to publish traditional narratives and songs in full in the original language (though linguists have still not agreed on how best to represent Aboriginal speech), then with a translation and a commentary. One good example of their work is Three Faces of Love: Traditional Aboriginal Song-Poetry (1976). This approach enables at least an initial appreciation of the subtlety and the artistry of the oral tradition.
Not all Aboriginal song and story is in Indigenous dialect. In the 1970s and ’80s, as Aboriginal people began to write in formal English, some began to express themselves in what might be called Aboriginal English, an English that is different from standard English. It is formed in short, simple sentences, and it makes considerable use of repetition with variation. It also conveys a certain dignity—and a rich sense of humour. Some versions of this can be found in the different narratives included in Sally Morgan’s My Place (1987) and, more sensitive still as a transcription, in Paddy Roe’s Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley (1983). In the last decades of the 20th century, the poet and storyteller Maureen Watson helped to maintain the oral tradition by reading on radio and television and by performing at schools.
The century after settlement
Almost as soon as settlement of New South Wales began, in 1788, reports of the “new” country were sent back to England. The public was interested not in the routine of convict life but in the details of strange new flora and fauna. In the colony itself there was little time for any other than practical considerations. Early publications were dominated by reports of new lands and rivers, journeys of exploration, summaries of what had so far been discovered in the “new” continent.
Yet there were some who attempted to interpret their experience as best they could. There were early expressions of local pride by those born in the colony, such as the poets Charles Tompson and William Wentworth in Australasia (1823), but those who were serving a tour of duty in the Antipodes, like the unfortunately named Barron Field, were more inclined to see their experiences in terms of disbelief, sometimes comic disbelief. Field’s First Fruits of Australian Poetry (1819) was the first volume of poetry published in Australia. Those who were likely to spend a much longer term in New South Wales, as the colony was then known, expressed a profound nostalgia for “home.” The sense of exile was keenly felt by the anonymous composers of convict songs and bush ballads alike.
The prose writers exhibited the inquiring mind of the 18th century; a scientific interest in the novelties of the new world and their perception of man as a social being show that, while the Romantic movement was under way in Europe, early Australia was essentially fostered by the Enlightenment. Watkin Tench’s A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay (1789) and its sequel, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson (1793), were immediately popular in Europe. Matthew Flinders’s A Voyage to Terra Australis (1814) is another example of this engaging literature of discovery.
Yet touches of the Romantics arrived speedily enough. By mid-century Charles Harpur, the child of ex-convicts, was writing rugged, well-sustained poems that were responsive to the landscape in the manner of William Wordsworth. In other poems he imitated the idealism of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Harpur also had made a careful study of Emersonian ideas. But his poetry and prose were not easily available beyond their occasional appearance in the colonial press, and only in modern times has a proper estimation of his work been undertaken. A collection of his poems, Poems by Charles Harpur, was published in 1883.
Adam Lindsay Gordon was a much more popular poet. “The Sick Stockrider” from his Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes (1870) was a general favourite, much admired and much recited. It conveyed a sense of comradeship, mapped a world by a bushman’s kind of detail, and exhibited a stoic sentimentalism that was exactly to colonial taste. Henry Kendall, a poet of forests and mountain streams, specialized in more mournful effects. As his is a poetry of sound and description rather than of action (as clearly evinced in his volume Leaves from Australian Forests ), it is not always clear that he was wrestling with some broadly transcendentalist notions.
The first Australian novel, Henry Savery’s Quintus Servinton, was published in 1831. It is strongly autobiographical, and its convict theme amounts to special pleading. But it does not emphasize the exotic possibilities of its Australian scenes. James Tucker’s Ralph Rashleigh; or, The Life of an Exile (written in 1844; published in an edited version in 1929 and in its original text in 1952), on the other hand, makes use of all the sensational opportunities at hand. It begins as a picaresque account of low-life London and proceeds through the whole gamut of convict life, escape, bushrangers, and life among Aboriginal peoples. One of its most telling moments is Ralph’s panic at being lost in the bush, a theme that compelled many colonial writers and painters.
The first widely known novel of Australia was Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn (1859) by Henry Kingsley, brother of Charles Kingsley. When the action at last moves from Devon to Australia, the story transposes into heroic romance, and it too manages to incorporate the sensational possibilities of the colonial experience: bushrangers and bushfires, floods and hostile Aboriginal peoples, the tragic outcome of being lost in the bush, cattle branding and horse galloping, and a fortune earned. Catherine Helen Spence’s Clara Morison (1854) details with a nice sense of irony the social preoccupations of Adelaide in the mid-19th century, but it was not a well-known novel.
Marcus Clarke’s His Natural Life (1874; the antecedent phrase For the Term of was inserted without authority after his death) is the first novel regarded as an Australian classic. It is a powerful account of the convict experience, drawing heavily on documentary sources. Within the rigours and perversions of the convict system, another social system forms itself and establishes its own code. But beyond the horrors and the brutality, there is a compensating moral theme, that of goodness recognized. Clarke uses his Australian material to approach universal values. Both Clarke and Rolf Boldrewood (pseudonym of Thomas Alexander Browne) initially published their fiction in serial installments in colonial magazines such as the Australian Journal and The Sydney Mail. Boldrewood’s Robbery Under Arms (1888) was immensely popular, and it too achieved classic status. Of particular interest is the Australian vernacular in which the narrator, Dick Marston, presents his confession of his part in gang activity. Boldrewood also articulates the sentimental, stoic resignation that colonial Australians seemed to favour. Other novelists who had established themselves by the late 1800s were Rosa Praed—her Policy and Passion (1881) is an interesting account of the personal life of a Queensland politician—and the prolific Ada Cambridge.
Not to be forgotten in any account of the first hundred years are the published journals of the explorers. Not only were their discoveries of widespread interest, but many of them—including Charles Sturt, Edward John Eyre, and Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell—were accomplished writers. Eyre’s account of his struggle around the Great Australian Bight (a wide embayment of the Indian Ocean) inspired the Australian novelist Patrick White in writing Voss (1957), although White modeled that novel in part on the experiences of Ludwig Leichhardt, explorer and naturalist who in the 1840s led a dangerous expedition through interior Australia that resulted in the discovery of many sites suitable for settlement.
Nationalism and expansion
The centenary year 1888 provided the occasion for review and reassessment, and almost inevitably that activity encouraged the growing nationalist sentiment already in evidence in such publications as the weekly Bulletin (founded 1880). The last 20 years of the 19th century saw a marked growth of nationalism and the movement toward federation of the separate states. The Bulletin, with its rallying cry of “Australia for the Australians,” was ardently nationalistic. It urged its contributors to “write Australian” and to celebrate above all the virtues of the Australian worker, especially the bush worker. It endorsed the egalitarian myth of mateship rather than the independence of the little man, the battler, who struggles on his own against the odds. It espoused a cheerful, somewhat larrikin (Australian word meaning, among other things, “rowdy,” or “irresponsible”) brashness, and in this it revealed its underlying urban orientation. Other papers and magazines of the period actively published Australian writing, but the Bulletin attracted the utopian idealists and the sentimental realists who dominated Australian writing at the end of the century. It advocated a spare, laconic style; it preferred a humorous attitude to life’s hardships; and it favoured themes of national pride, the values of rural life, and sympathy for the struggles of small-scale farmers. Among its many contributors, A.B. (“Banjo”) Paterson was acclaimed for composing “Waltzing Matilda” and for his bush ballads, and Henry Lawson published his greatest short stories there. (Among the collections of Lawson’s work are While the Billy Boils  and Children of the Bush ).
Curiously, at the very time the image of young Australia was being so vigorously advanced, Paterson and Lawson and Steele Rudd (pseudonym of Arthur Hoey Davis) showed a pronounced tendency to nostalgia, to the distant in time or place. Joseph Furphy, resisting the call for succinctness, wrote a large complex novel, Such Is Life (1903), describing the rural world of the 1880s. It overflows with details of station life, the conversations of bullock drivers, nationalistic sentiments, and philosophical meditations about chance and determinism.
The reading of the Australian experience in terms of bush realism was open to challenge. Barbara Baynton’s stories in Bush Studies (1902) subvert the persistent “matey” ethos, suggesting instead the darkly disturbing side of bush experience. Christopher Brennan, in such volumes as Poems 1913 (1913), virtually ignored local preoccupations in his Symbolist poetry; he tapped instead the deep sources of spiritual restlessness, particularly through the use of myth and archetype. Some popular writers, such as C.J. Dennis in his verses about the Sentimental Bloke, relocated many of the bush attitudes to the inner city.
By the early decades of the 20th century, the era of bushranging, convictism, and exploration was far enough in the past to be regarded as historical colour. It also was fully expected that the Aboriginal peoples would also pass away—Daisy Bates, who lived for many years among Aboriginal people, used as the title of her book about her experiences the standard phrase The Passing of the Aborigine (1938). Aboriginal people had become the subject of anthropological interest in the work of Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer and Francis James Gillen in Central Australia, and Aboriginal legends had been collected and rewritten by K. Langloh Parker, although there was still very little interest in Aboriginal people as people. Such interest as existed was—in the manner of the times—proprietary, as in Mrs. Aeneas Gunn’s The Little Black Princess (1905) for young readers and in her autobiographical We of the Never-Never (1908), about her experiences on a station in the Northern Territory, the last region of Australia to attract European expansion. It still regards itself as the quintessential Outback.
The first great phase of writing for children also occurred in the Federation era (Australia’s version of the Edwardian period, extending from 1901, when the Australian provinces formed a federation, to just beyond the end of World War I), a time of widespread wealth and security and, for the middle class, of social consolidation. The books for children reflect this atmosphere; they also reflect another reality, the easy acceptance of both Australian and British Empire loyalties. Classic works were written by Ethel Turner, Ethel Pedley, Amy and Louise Mack, May Gibbs, and Mary Grant Bruce (a little later), and Norman Lindsay’s wonderful The Magic Pudding (1918) became standard fare for generations of Australian children.
The character of the times is perhaps best represented in the work of such diverse writers as Mary Gilmore, Walter Murdoch, and Miles Franklin. The life span of each of them stretched from colonial times into the modern era; in both their lives and their writing, they represented continuity. Each expressed a kind of independence from time: Gilmore by the long reach of her memory, apparent in such volumes as Old Days, Old Ways: A Book of Recollections (1934); Murdoch by the gentle whimsy and conversational ease of his essays, as in Speaking Personally (1930); and Franklin by her absorption in the realm of Australian pastoral in such novels as Up the Country (1928), though she is mostly remembered by her early pseudoautobiographical My Brilliant Career (1901). John Shaw Neilson, in the sheer shimmering beauty of his lyric poetry, achieves another order of timelessness, that of the moment of true perception, at once unworldly and firmly located in the natural world.
E.J. Banfield stepped aside from the world for reasons of health and wrote from his island on the Great Barrier Reef a series of books beginning with Confessions of a Beachcomber (1908) that reflected, often wryly, on natural history and the advantages of the contemplative life. Jack McLaren in My Crowded Solitude (1926) was another who encountered timelessness for a time. And C.E.W. Bean found the same slow rhythms of experience out on the great Western plains (On the Wool Track ) and down the Darling River (The Dreadnought of the Darling ). Like Banfield and Murdoch, he identified a genial world and men whose essential character he admired, and, when he entered the world of torrid events as Australia’s official war historian, his thesis was that the courage and resourcefulness of the Australian soldier, the digger, was in fact derived from the bushman—that these were but two manifestations of the national type. The same perception is present in Keith Hancock’s Australia (1930), a reading of Australian history in terms of character.
The most impressive novelist of the period was Henry Handel Richardson (pseudonym of Ethel Florence Lindesay Robertson). Her Maurice Guest (1908), set in Leipzig, Germany, is an antiromantic novel about ordinariness caught up with genius, provincialism among the exotic, the tragedy of an insufficiently great passion. Her three-volume masterpiece, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1917–29), traces the fluctuating fortunes of the immigrants who established the new urban Australia in the late 19th century. The last volume, Ultima Thule, graphically describes conditions in the goldfields and brings its character studies of the temperamentally opposite spouses Richard and Mary to a profoundly moving climax. Katharine Susannah Prichard’s realism in Working Bullocks (1926) and in Coonardoo (1929), her sympathetic portrait of an Aboriginal woman, was of a more romantic nature. For others, such as Kylie Tennant and Eleanor Dark, realism served social and historical ends.
Modernism arrived with the poetry of Kenneth Slessor (as evidenced in such of his volumes as Earth-Visitors  and Five Bells ) and R.D. FitzGerald (Forty Years’ Poems  and Product: Later Verses by Robert D. FitzGerald ). Slessor was committed to the importance of the image; FitzGerald was of a more philosophical bent and developed complex arguments in his poems. During the 1930s both became preoccupied with history and the concept of time.
The Depression years directed attention back to the comparable experiences of the early 1890s and confirmed the defining status of that period in Australian cultural mythology, the apotheosis of the acclaimed national virtues—mateship, humorous stoicism, populist pragmatism, and irony. It was also a time of international awakening, and it was a time of discovery, as the many books about travel, especially in the Australian Outback, testify. Among the discoveries of that period was a romantic notion of the spirit of place and the importance, for writers, of what could still be discerned of Aboriginal culture: this discovery gave rise to the Jindyworobak movement, which had as its goal the freeing of Australian art from “alien” influences. By apt coincidence, Xavier Herbert’s Capricornia (1938) was published at this time. Herbert’s sprawling comic anarchy, his maverick vision, and the sense of remoteness from regulated society all derive from his Northern Territory milieu. But Capricornia also displays all the themes important to the Jindyworobak movement: concern for the Aboriginal, discovery of the Outback, social protest, and the true spirit of Australia. Before long, however, world events overwhelmed the movement completely.


Native American Heritage Month
In response to an effort by many to gain a day of recognition for the great influence American Indians have had upon the U.S., Congress designated a week of October to celebrate Native American Awareness Week in 1976. Yearly legislation was enacted to continue the tradition until August 1990, when President Bush approved the designation of November as National American Indian Heritage Month. Each year a similar proclamation is issued. President Clinton noted in 1996, “Throughout our history, American Indian and Alaska Native peoples have been an integral part of the American character. Against all odds, America’s first peoples have endured, and they remain a vital cultural, political, social, and moral presence.” November is an appropriate month for the celebration because it is traditionally a time when many American Indians hold fall harvest and world-renewal ceremonies, powwows, dances, and various feasts. The holiday recognizes hundreds of different tribes and approximately 250 languages, and celebrates the history, tradition, and values of American Indians. National American Indian Heritage Month serves as a reminder of the positive effect native peoples have had on the cultural development and growth of the U.S., as well as the struggles and challenges they have faced.
Panamanian Independence Month
The Fiestas Patrias (literally ‘Homeland Festivals’) mark the process by which Panama achieved independence from Spain in 1821, then Colombia in 1903, and (more empirically) from the United States with the handover of the Panama Canal in 1999. The celebration extends over the entire month of November, with various days singled out for their respective honors.
Last Day to Drop, Withdraw, Declare Pass/Not-Pass, or Audit for Full Semester Classes
Last day to Drop or Withdraw (student will receive an automatic W grade), declare Pass/Not-Pass, and Change to or from Audit for Full Semester Classes.
In remembrance of Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”). On November 9-10, 1938, after a series of attacks, thousands of Jewish homes, shops, schools and synagogues were ransacked and destroyed, leaving the streets covered in pieces of smashed windows – the origin of the name Kristallnacht or “Night of Broken Glass.”
In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…” The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business.
Haven is a required online course for all in-coming freshmen and transfer students to complete to initiate understanding of consent, sexual assault, relationship violence, and bystander intervention. If this course is not completed by the student prior to the student’s spring registration date within the student’s first year at Missouri State University, a Registration Hold will be placed on the student’s account. This hold will be lifted from the account once completion of Haven has occurred.
To Log In:
- Always sign in at: my.missouristate.edu
- After signing in, go under the Academics tab and find the New Student or Transfer Student section. Within this square, there is a training section and the Haven link is in this area. To access Haven, choose the link and you can begin.
Course problems? Contact Emma Rapp, Dean of Students Graduate Assistant at Rapp703_@missouristate.edu or at (417) 836-6087
Those with disabilities who may not be able to access Haven because of the instructional format or design of the training program may request an accommodation by contacting the Disability Resource Center at email@example.com or 417-836-4192
“A Musical Salute to Our Veterans” Concert
Sunday, November 9 at 4pm, Juanita K. Hammons Hall
The Missouri State University Bands will be presenting its annual “A Musical Salute To Our Veterans” Concert on Sunday, November 9 at 4:00 p.m. in the Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts. Entertainment ensembles, the Jazz Band and the the entire Pride Marching Band will combine forces to present an afternoon of inspiration, appreciation and entertainment. Featured speaker this year will be noted television personality, Jerry Jacob.
CNAS Public Lecture Series: Nanobiochemistry: Nanoparticles for Biological Applications
Tuesday, November 11 at 7:30pm, Temple Hall 002
Nanoscience is a burgeoning field that overlaps with many of the physical and natural sciences. Research in nanoscience has provided us many different types of new nanoscale materials that have found very promising applications in biological and biomedical circumstances. For example, cationic polymers and lipids can self—assemble with nucleic acids to form nano–to micro–sized “polyplexes”, which have been used for nucleic acid therapies (e.g. gene therapy). In addition, many inorganic nanoparticles and nanocrystals can be functionalized to interact with biological systems. Gold nanoparticles can be observed via both light and electron microscopy. Semiconductor quantum dot nanoparticles are intensely fluorescent, allowing researchers to observe single biomolecules in living systems. As a further enhancement, doping inorganic nanoparticles with MRI—active elements, such as Gadolinium, allows multi–modal imaging in light microscopy, electron microscopy, and magnetic resonance imaging. This lecture will investigate some ways nanoparticles are being used in biological and biomedical applications.
Katye Fichter, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry
David Glass Lecture Series – Dr. Jason Selk
Monday, November 10 at 2:30pm, PSU Auditorium
Dr. Jason Selk will be on campus to talk to students about Executive Toughness, a mental training program to develop leadership performance.
While serving as the Director of Mental Training for the St Louis Cardinals, Dr. Jason Selk helped the team win their first World Series in over 20 years, and in 2011 he assisted the Cardinals in the historic feat of winning their second World Championship in a six year period. Dr. Selk is a regular contributor to Forbes, ABC, CBS, ESPN, and NBC radio and television and has been featured in USA Today, CNBC, Men’s Health, Muscle and Fitness, Shape and Self Magazine. Dr Selk’s second book,Executive Toughness, is a best-selling business book and his first book,10-Minute Toughness, is on pace to be one of the best-selling sport psychology books of all time.
Dr. Selk utilizes his in-depth knowledge and experience of working with the world’s finest athletes, coaches and business leaders to help individuals and organizations outperform their competition. Dr. Selk works with such clients as professional athletes in the NFL, NHL, NBA, PGA, LPGA, MLB and NASCAR. In addition, he works with such business clients as UBS Financial, Edward Jones, Wells Fargo, Northwestern Mutual and Enterprise Holdings, to name a few.
Flameco Vivo / Carlota Santana: The Soul of Flamenco
Tuesday, November 11 at 7:30pm, Juanita K. Hammons Hall
What is the Soul of Flamenco? It is not only the performers themselves, but what they carry inside – the impassioned investment of each dancer, singer, and musician. Flamenco is an expression of feeling, a community built on emotions. Happiness, sadness, joy, and sorrow are translated through this eloquent art form, expressing the vital essence that lives within each of us. These universal emotions are shared across time and physical boundaries, and are the foundation of Flamenco.
Flamenco Vivo brings an exciting evening of Flamenco to the stage, featuring accomplished artists from the United States and Spain. The performance will include celebrated repertoire as well as the new work“A Solas” by Ángel Muñoz , which The New York Times deemed “…impressive for its compositional finesse.”
International Education Week
International Dance Night
Wednesday, November 12 at 8pm, PSU Ballroom
Learn popular dances from all over the world at this international dance party, featuring styles of dance ranging from Bollywood to Salsa. Come learn some new moves for your next night out.
What Matters? | Documentary and Keynote Discussion
Thursday, November 13 at 6pm, Carrington Hall Auditorium
If you’ve ever felt like one person can’t make a difference, this film is for you. If you’ve ever felt like you can be the one person to change the world, this film is for you.
Meet parties from both camps in this feature-length documentary about three friends – two idealist activists and one skeptic, attempting to live in poverty, on $1.25 per day, across 3 continents. What begins as an adventure to convert their skeptic friend takes a devastating turn when two of them barely survive a deadly plane crash in Africa, and all three must fight to finish what they started.
Following the film, learn more about their personal journeys as the filmmakers speak on their lives and how the experience affected each of them.
Visit http://www.whatmattersfilm.com/ for film trailer.
Saturday, November 15 at 5pm, PSU Ballroom and Theatre
The Association of International Students at Missouri State extends a special invitation to all area residents to its 36th Annual International Banquet and Show: Colors of the World. This event is a multicultural event that promotes the Public Affairs mission of Missouri State University.
To start the evening, a buffet of exotic foods prepared by students (under the supervision of advisors and catering staff) will be offered. It will feature both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes from around the globe. Coffee and other drinks will also be served.
After the banquet, the traditional cultural entertainment portion of the evening moves to the PSU Theatre. The show will include different dance routines, musical offerings, skits and other types of performances from all parts of the world: Asia, Africa, Latin America, South America, Europe, and North America. A Fashion show will feature traditional clothes from different countries. It is a must-see cultural learning opportunity that is sure to open your eyes, and hearts, to other cultures.
Tickets, which cover both the dinner and the show, can be purchased for $20 for general admission and $15 for students. Tickets will be available for purchase Monday through Friday from November 3 to November 14 or until all tickets are sold.
Missouri State University Film Series – Ticket Out
Friday, November 7 at 7pm, PSU Theatre
Written by Hunger Games creator Suzanne Collins & director Doug Lodato, Ticket Out is a thriller set in the world of the controversial underground railways that aid women and children escaping from abusive, sometimes murderous spouses. The film stars Ray Liotta, Alexandra Breckenridge (True Blood, American Horror Story) and Billy Burke (Twilight, Revolution). Liotta plays a taut and mysterious character who aids Jocelyn (Breckenridge) and her children in their flight from her abusive ex-husband (Burke).
2nd Assistant director, Ken Chaplin, will hold a talk-back session following the film. A member of the Director’s Guild of America, Ken also travels extensively presenting seminars on Production Assistant Training and Film Crew Essentials.
Native American Archaeological Research
Wednesday, November 5 at 7pm, MSU Center for Archaeological Research (622 S. Kimbrough Ave)
Florice Pearce will share recent archaeological work on Native American sites in the Ozarks entitled, “A Study of the Plentiful Ivy Site and Other Selected Upland Sites in Southern Missouri.”
Find out more about SAC films, concerts, and comedy by looking at our SAC Events Blog.
Movie: 22 Jump Street
Wednesday, November 5 at 9pm, PSU Theatre
Sunday, November 9 at 9pm, PSU Theatre
Free movie in the PSU Theatre. Check out SAC Events Blog for more information.
After Hours: Fandom Night
Thursday, November 6 at 9pm, PSU Food Court
This event will be a trivia night that will allow those in attendance to express their knowledge of different fandoms such as Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etc. Students will compete in teams for prizes. Teams will be established at the event.
Comedy Club: John Jacobs
Friday, November 7 at 7pm, PSU Ballroom West
After a childhood spent battling Tourettes Syndrome and a series of family tragedies, comedy has been John’s primary means of defense. He is the star of the newest show on MTV: Are You The One? Check out SAC Events Blog for more information.
Rock n’ Bowl
Friday, November 7 at 7:30pm, PSU Level 1 Game Center
Friday, November 14 at 7:30pm, PSU Level 1 Game Center
Free bowling, table tennis and billiards in Level One Game Center.
Saturday, November 8 at 11am, Bearfest Village
SAC will be hosting tailgates at the new Bearfest Village with free food, some prize giveaways, and a place to paint faces and make spirit signs.
Cultural Affairs: Native American Pride Dancers
Tuseday, November 11 at 7pm, PSU Theatre
In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, the Native Pride Dancers bring entertainment and culture to their audiences.
We celebrate the spirit and beauty of Indigenous peoples! We honor the uniqueness and history of First Nations including Sac and Fox Tribe of Meskwaki Nation, Lakota Nation of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Ojibwe, Dakota, Menominee, Cree, Ho-Chunk, Dine’(Navajo) and various other tribes.
As individual artists, we join together as one!
We honor our elders through many beautiful forms like music, dance and storytelling to reflect our rich cultural history and customs passed down from generation to generation. We share the true history of bravery, fortitude, generosity and wisdom.
We are passionately devoted to keeping our traditions alive. Our mission is to educate, inspire, motivate and empower diverse communities to bridge cultural gaps through Indigenous traditions.
Movie: Wish I Was There
Sunday, November 16 at 9pm, PSU Theatre
Free movie in the PSU Theatre. Check out SAC Events Blog for more information.
Concerts: Coffee Shop Sound
Monday, November 17 at 7pm, PSU South Lounge
Coffee Shop Sound is an event filled with numerous acoustic players to set the mood for the students. It’s a relaxing evening for people to enjoy coffee or tea and cookies while perhaps doing homework. The atmosphere is great and everyone enjoys themselves.
For more opportunities, subscribe to the Community Opportunities Newsletter.
Bear Service Day at Ozarks Food Harvest
Thursday, November 6 at 5:30pm, Plaster Student Union
Bear Service Team will be taking a group of volunteers to Ozarks Food Harvest. Ozarks Food Harvest is a food bank that provides millions of meals to people in our community every year, but they need help from volunteers like you to get this accomplished.
This group will be attending the volunteer session on Thursday, November 6 from 6-9 pm. Volunteers will meet in the Plaster Student Union at 5:30 pm and sign the volunteer agreements needed to participate in the volunteer session at OFH. Volunteers will be assisting with the assembly of Weekend Backpacks for at risk elementary students and also assist in the building of commodity boxes for low income seniors. Drivers are needed for the event, so if you can drive, make sure to indicate that when you sign up here.
Location: Ozarks Food Harvest
Contact: Nicole Noonan
Bear Service Team
Bear Service Team (BST) is a student organization team that plans and promotes service opportunities for Missouri State University students. BST collaborates with local agencies in Springfield and beyond to have meaningful service experiences that allow students to become engaged in the community. BST is looking for students who want to become engaged in the community, have a passion for social issues, and have creative ideas about how to get students involved. Visit the Center for Community Engagement (the green room) for more information and pick up an application!
Food Assistance for Students
Mondays and Tuesdays at 3pm-6pm while MSU is in session
The Food Pantry for Missouri State University Students is for any student facing food insecurity. This may be students going hungry, not able to make ends meet, facing a delay in Financial Aid or other assistance, or any other reason.
Well of Life – MSU Student Food Pantry
418 S Kimbrough
Springfield, MO 65806
(Just across from the Qdoba near Bear Park North)
Meals a Million
November 14-16, Springfield Exposition Center
Friends Against Hunger is hosting the Meals A Million Pack-A-Thon! Every half hour, 100 volunteers will start packaging food. In past years, MSU Bears have filled thousands spots to help package meals.
Register you and your organization to volunteer: MealsAMillion
Contact: Karen Wood
Microsoft IT Academy
Missouri State University students and alumni now have an exciting new opportunity for online training through Microsoft’s IT Academy! Microsoft IT Academy program provides you with the opportunity to enhance your technology skills so you can advance your education and your career. Over 400 self-paced, interactive, and engaging online training classes are available in several languages. Courses are also available to prepare for Microsoft application certifications.
For a review of events that have already happened, please visit our Athletics Blog Page.
- Saturday, November 8, Football vs. Southern Illinois, 2pm, Plaster Stadium
- Saturday, November 8, M Soccer vs. Evansville, 7pm, Allison South
- Saturday, November 8, M Basketball vs. Missouri Southern, 7:35pm, JQH Arena
- Sunday, November 9, W Basketball vs. Southwest Baptist, 2:05pm, JQH Arena
- Friday, November 14, Volleyball vs. Southern Illinois, 7pm, Hammons Student Center
- Friday, November 14, M Basketball vs. Eastern Illinois, 7:05pm, JQH Arena
- Friday, November 14, D2 Ice Hockey vs. Lindenwood University – Belleville, 7pm, Mediacom Ice Park
- Saturday, November 15, Football vs. North Dakota State, 2pm, Plaster Stadium
- Saturday, November 15, D2 Ice Hockey vs. Lindenwood University – Belleville, 7pm, Mediacom Ice Park
- Saturday, November 15, Volleyball vs. Evansville, 7pm, Hammons Student Center
- Time is running out! The deadline to register for this year’s annual Ski Trip to Steamboat Springs, CO is November 4! The trip will be over winter break, from December 13-20. Learn more about this awesome opportunity at http://www.missouristate.edu/recreation/OutdoorAdventures/140219.htm
- Interested in becoming a BearFit instructor? Sign up for the BearFit Instructor Workshop! This $15 event will be held on November 10th or 17th from 7-8:30PM. Sign up at the FRC Welcome Desk before November 11th to secure your spot!
- Plan a Western Adventure with Campus Rec – Outdoor Adventures is headed to Utah on November 25th thru November 30th! Explore Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park for only $300. OA will provide camping equipment, transportation, park fees, and camping fees. Just bring clothes, food, and sense of adventure.
- American Red Cross CPR and First Aid Certification. Register online or in person at the FRC. Registration deadline is 2 days before each class. Limited seats are available. CPR/AED and First Aid are held in the Aquatics Classroom. CPR is $55 and First Aid is $40.
CPR/AED Session 3: November 15 from 8:30am-12:00pm
First Aid Session 3: November 15 from 12:30pm-2:00pm
This certification does not fulfill the requirement for MSU nursing students.
- Only one SHARP Session left! Register online for this free self-defense course for females. November 17-18 from 6:30-9PM in the FRC, studio A. Register by November 14.
- Personal Training is offered at the FRC! Reach all of your goals this year with help from one of our certified personal trainers. For more information visit our website: http://www.missouristate.edu/recreation/Wellness/AssessmentsAndTraining.htm
- Massage Therapy is offered at the Foster Recreation Center. Check our website for more information on times, prices, and how to sign up: http://www.missouristate.edu/recreation/Wellness/Massages.htm.


Plot is a critical story element of fiction, but you already know that of course. Read this article, if you want to take a step back and learn more about all the elements of fiction.
Let’s define what is the Plot of a story exactly? The definition of plot is a literary term used to describe a sequence of interconnected events that make up a story. The events can be broken up into different types of plot elements and the organization of those plot elements makes up the plot structure.
As an author all the elements of fiction are important, but most writers will agree, having a strong Plot is right up there with Character in terms of priority for most novels.
Our goal with this guide is to provide you with the ultimate guide to understanding Plot, as well as its elements and structure.
Keep reading if you want to answer any remaining questions you have around fully understanding the plot of a story.
Intro: Why is Plot Important to Your Story
As we defined earlier in this article, the plot is a series of interconnected events that make up a story. So let’s look at why that’s so important in a novel. The plot gives a story forward momentum as it is the driving force behind the events. The Why if you will.
If you look at any story the events included in that story should be central to moving it forward. As a reader and writer, we unconsciously expect that the events of the story included in whatever book we are currently on are included because they are fundamental to driving the story forward.
While we don’t actively think about it when reading a book, through the suspension of our disbelief which is needed to get fully engrossed in a story, we subconsciously accept the world as true, meaning our minds unconsciously accept that other events are happening in that world that we aren’t privy to.
The job of a writer is to include events that are essential to the story being told. The plot of your story is the specific events you have decided to include in your story because they are essential to the characters and driving them towards their ultimate goal.
So while the plot is events that occur in a story, it is important to emphasize that these events need to be interconnected and with that, they need to have causality to each other. They are working together to help explain not just What happens in a story but Why it happens.
Without a plot, you will be left with a series of unrelated happenings that meander without meaning or direction. The plot is essential in capturing the reader and making them feel vested in what happens next.
Defining Plot Elements
What is the definition of Plot Elements? Plot elements are defined as the individual components or elements of a plot that make up a story.
Think of these plot elements as each having a distinct function in the overall construction of the plot. This will help you better understand and remember the individual plot elements as we identify them in the next section.
What are the 6 Elements of Plot in Literature?
Now that you know the definition of plot elements and understand that they each provide a specific function in the overall construction of the plot as a whole. Let’s take the time to identify, define, and explain the use of each of these 6 key plot elements.
Plot Element # 1: Exposition
The first plot element we will define is exposition. So what is the definition of exposition in literature? Exposition is a literary term that refers to the element of the plot that works to introduce the theme, setting, characters, and circumstances at the story’s onset.
When you are thinking of writing exposition in your story, think of it as introducing the reader to the story world and its characters as they are in their current state. This goes beyond just backstory; it helps to build the foundation for the ensuing story.
By building the scene for the reader it helps to give them context for the rest of the story. It helps root them in the world, which will give ensuing events more meaning and makes them more realistic.
Plot Element #2: Conflict
The second plot element we will discuss is Conflict. What is the definition of Conflict in a story? Conflict is the stories problem and drives it from beginning to end.
The conflict is essential to any plot as it is what propels the story forward, without it the story would be boring and have no real reason for occurring or being told.
Conflict can take 6 different forms in your story. Here are the 6 different types of conflict you can incorporate into your novel’s plot.
- Person Vs Person: Character conflicts that take place between people
- Person Vs Self: Character conflicts that happen as an internal struggle
- Person Vs Nature: Person verse natural disaster or the living environment as a whole
- Person Vs Society: Person versus a social injustice or persecution
- Person Vs Supernatural: Person versus a supernatural being or force
- Person Vs Technology: Character versus science or technological advancements that are out of their control.
Conflict can either be internal or external. Your characters can face a combination of conflict in your story. Remember to think about your stories conflict when outlining your plot, this is essential to creating a story that moves forward with a purpose.
Plot Element #3: Rising Action
The 3rd element of Plot that we will define and discuss is Rising Action. What is the definition of Rising Action in Plot? Rising Action is the series of events or elements in a plot that works to create suspense, tension, and enhance readers interest in the story.
The rising action of a plot is very important as it helps build towards the payoff or Climax in a story. Rising action helps to raise the stakes in the story. The majority of events in a fiction plot take place in during the Rising Element and should work to set up and heighten the potential payoff during the climax.
Plot Element #4: Climax
The 4th element of a plot is Climax. What is the definition of Climax? The climax is the point of a plot in which the conflict or crises reaches its peak. It is the point in the story where tension is at its highest point. It is also known as the turning point as it is the point in the story where the Rising Action turns into Falling Action.
When you are writing your climax realize that it is a very important element of the plot as it helps frame the importance of the previous rising action while preparing the reader for the resolution of the conflict. A strong climax should be the highest point of action or emotional tension in the story as you would expect in any grande finale.
Plot Element #5: Falling Action
The 5th element of a plot is the Falling Action. What is the definition of Falling Action? The Falling Action occurs immediately after the Climax and serves to lower the tension, close up loose ends, and build towards the closure of the story.
The falling action can be very brief, but you should think of it as a way to give the reader a chance to exhale and enjoy the payoff that occurred during the Climax.
Plot Element #6: Resolution
The 6th element of a plot is the Resolution. What is the definition of resolution in literature? Resolution is a literary plot device that mostly follows the climax. It is also known as the denouement in French. It refers to the unfolding or solution to a complicated problem in the story.
If some stories the resolution can occur almost simultaneously to the climax, but in other stories, it happens towards the end of the book. Either way, the resolution is an integral part of the conflict as it helps to resolve it. The resolution not only helps resolve the major problem of the story, but it also allows the stories theme to resonate with the readers.
Watch this short video below to get a 2-minute recap on the 6 elements of Plot.
What is the Definition of Plot Structure?
Now that we have defined plot and elements of a plot, let’s define plot structure. What is the definition of plot structure? The definition of plot structure refers to the organization of events or plot elements that make of the story.
As an author, it is up to you to organize the events of your plot so they tell the most entertaining and impactful story possible.
There are many different story structures you can use when it comes to writing your story. When you are outlining your story, consider the story you are trying to tell. When you have a good handle on the theme of your story and what you are really trying to say with it, pick a plot structure that allows you to organize the individualized elements in the most impactful way possible.
What is a Plot Structure Diagram?
There is a reason it is said a picture is worth a thousand words. So let’s take a look at a plot structure diagram.
What is a plot structure diagram? A plot structure diagram is an organizational tool which uses a visual representation to represent the key events in a plot.
The plot structure diagram allows readers and writers to visualize the key features of the story. The first basic triangle-based plot diagram was talked about by Aristotle. It represented the three basic parts of a story, the beginning, middle, and end.
Gustav Freytag expanded upon Aristotle’s simple triangle by adding rising action and falling action to the diagram.
How is Plot Different From Theme?
Many people confuse the plot of a story with its theme. While it is true that plot and theme work together to tell a quality story; they are in fact to very different things.
The difference between Plot and Theme is a plot is what happens in a story, whereas, the theme is what your story is about.
How do Plot and Theme Relate?
The theme is what the story is ultimately about, or said another way, it is the message the reader should take away from the story or the commentary the author is trying to make by telling the story.
The plot is the series of events that drive the story from beginning to end. So as an author you want your plot to help bring out and accentuate your theme. The events and decisions your characters make in relation to those events help to you express the theme of the narrative.
You can use the theme as a benchmark for what happens in your plot. Every event should work to move your story forward and in conjunction with the theme of your story.
What are Common Mistakes when Constructing a Plot?
One of the most common mistakes authors make when writing a novel is called a plot hole.
What is a plot hole? In a work of fiction, plot holes or plotholes, are errors or gaps in the plot. These errors or gaps are inconsistent with the rest of the plot’s events, making them unrealistic and unbelievable to the story or its characters.
Examples of Common Plot Holes or Gaps
Plotholes can take all shapes and sizes. Some plot errors are smaller than others. As an author, you want to try and make sure that you close any open plotholes prior to publishing your book.
Not all plot holes are catastrophic to the success of your book, but even the smallest gap in your plot can annoy readers and leave the story feeling incomplete or unedited.
Now that you know a plot hole is an error or inconsistency in the stories narrative that directly contradicts the logical flow of the story, let’s take a closer look at some of the common types of plot holes.
Plothole Example #1: Illogical Events
This is something that you may have encountered when watching a movie or reading a story that felt like it just didn’t make sense.
This can be something like an all-powerful villain or antagonist that has established itself as close to unbeatable as possible throughout the story is then too easily defeated. You need to make sure your events make sense to the world and story as a whole. No Exceptions!
Plothole Example #2: Contradictions
The second type of plot errors is contradictions. These often have to do with the actions of the characters.
If you have ever read or even worse written a scene in which the character seems to be inexplicably battling bipolar disorder from one scene to another, then you know exactly what this type of plothole looks like.
Plothole Example #3: Unresolved Story Lines
This may not seem like such a big deal, and it is possible to recover assuming the incomplete storyline in minor in nature, but still, as an author, we should be choosing every plot element we introduce into a story meticulously.
So if you are going to introduce a plot element it should serve to move the story forward and thus be tied up by the end of the story.
A famous example of the unresolved storyline plot hole was from the Sopranos. A scene in the snow-covered woods where two Russians are hunting someone in the Pine Barons when he is hit by a shot but the body disappears. That storyline was never finished and caused a lot of complaints from viewers.
Don’t believe me, watch the video below.
Plothole Example #4: Impossible Events
This plothole has to do with something that just isn’t plausible. So think of a character that travels halfway around the globe in a couple of hours.
Make sure you are sticking to the rules of your world. You need to stick to the constraints of technology and science as you’ve defined them. If you find yourself stretching the boundaries of what’s possible as an author, make sure you aren’t asking for too much of leap of faith from the readers to believe its possible.
Plothole Example #5: Continuity Errors
The plothole that is probably easiest to overlook is simple continuity errors. If your character finds themselves forgetting a piece of information that they knew earlier in the novel, that’s not ok.
Make sure you keep continuity in the flow of information throughout the story. Also, be careful of simple continuity errors like saying someone has green eyes earlier in a novel and then having a love interest melt in a pool of their crystal blue eyes later.
How can an Author Check their Story for Plot Holes?
As an author, the easiest way to ensure you avoid or clean up plot holes in your novel is to enlist the help of content or developmental editors and readers throughout the creation process.
If you have the money to invest, then investing in a developmental editor is well worth it. If you are like most new writers, you may not have the money to invest in professional editors.
So here are few ways to make sure you can still catch plot holes in your book before you publish.
Do a Developmental Outline
Once you are done outlining your novel, have a friend take a look at the outline. Ask them for feedback on the theme and plot itself. Ask them to give you any additional questions they have about the book from what they saw in the outline.
Get a Content Editor
Once you have your first draft finished, enlist someone to perform a content edit. In this edit, they should be looking for inconsistencies in the plot. Open-ended questions that have not been resolved. Questions that still need to be answered and problems with character development.
The earlier you can get this type of feedback the better, as it will cut down on the level of rewriting or plot surgery you need to do after the fact.
Enlist Beta Readers
Beta readers are made up of a small tribe of passionate readers that can help you find errors in your story and plot before you publish.
Give them the book when it is 99% baked. This is a chance for your group of Beta Readers to find last-minute inaccuracies or plotholes. At this point in the process, changes should be minor and not involve major plot surgery.
Not all feedback from your Beta readers needs to be included in your final novel, but you should definitely clean up any plot holes they find unless you are making a creative choice to leave it as is.
9 Tips to Writing A Good Plot
- Stay True to the Characters: The characters are essential to your story. You need to understand them fully, including their motivations and desires. Make sure your characters actions make sense to who they are, and not just to serve the plot. Read our Character Development Guide for More Help with this.
- Character Arc Should Compliment Plot: Make sure you understand their character arc, it should coincide to the events in your plot. The events in your plot should help drive your character arc where it needs to go. What happens to your character and the decisions they make should pay off with the plot.
- Outline Your Plot: Put in the work before you start writing and plan out your plot by outlining it. Many writers want to skip this step. But this is the best way to find plotholes or work around trouble spots in your plot prior to actually writing. Don’t be afraid to outline your plot, embrace it. Read our guide to outlining your novel.
- Genre Awareness: Understand the keys and tropes to your genre. You want to make sure you give your readers the elements they expect from your story’s plot based on the genre you are writing in.
- Set-up and Payoffs: Make sure your rising action helps set-up your payoffs, and then make sure the payoff in your plot actually payoffs. If you want to have an impact with your climax, you need to make sure the set-up builds the tension and the stakes for the readers. Same goes for each series of smaller scenes.
- Be Unpredictable: Just because you are delivering plot tropes that are expected in a given genre, that doesn’t mean your story should be predictable. Make sure you are keeping your readers on their toes. But make sure you aren’t doing this by throwing in haphazard plot errors like illogical or unbelievable plot elements.
- Remember Causality: Everything you include in your novel should be there for a reason. Your plot, character action, and scenes need to contain a thread of cause and effect to them. The more causality you have in your plot the more believable and engaging it will be. You are telling a story of interconnected events that set your characters on a path of events (the plot). Make sure you remember the importance of causality when writing your plot.
- Know your Story Structure: When you start outlining make sure you understand your story structure. Certain structures may be better than others for certain types of stories. So make sure you take that into account as you are outlining your plot. You can and should make tweaks to the story structure but it provides a good base to guide your plot.
- Power of a Twist: If you can build in great plot twist then you will really leave your readers with a memorable experience they are likely to share. The key is that your plot twist needs to be believable and have been set-up throughout the plot without your readers realizing it until the twist happens, then the twist should seem right in place with the novel.
Conclusion: To our Plot Guide
I hope this plot guide has been helpful. We all have great plots in us, what we have to do is take the time to consciously bring them out.
The truth is that everything you read here probably sounded like good common sense once you read it and that’s actually a great thing. Because what that tells me is that you already know how to create a good plot, and you were merely looking for little reminders to keep you on track as you plot and write your next novel.
The best advice I can give you is to take the time to develop your plot thoroughly before you start writing. If you are a Panser then this advice probably sounds horrible. But if you can outline broad strokes of you plot prior to writing, you will be able to write faster while knowing you have already built the bones of a quality plot.
As always, thanks for reading and more importantly Writing!


Here is a list of activities and resources we are using for an American Revolution unit I am teaching to a group of nine homeschoolers, ages seven through ten. The class is a twenty-week unit that traces the causes, battles and results of the American Revolution. Unlike other units, which I’ve broken down by disciplines, I describe this curriculum week-by-week, as I will teach it.
We are using the PBS mini-series Liberty’s Kids as the unifying framework for the class, but we are reading broadly as well. The class is a field trip heavy, and we will become Junior Rangers at both Minute Man and Independence Hall National Parks. We are going to cook colonial food, dance a minuet, learn a bit about portraiture, and write with quill pens. We’ll read the Stamp Act, and Declaration of Independence. We’ll memorize the preamble to the Constitution and Phillis Wheatly poetry. We’ll learn about the roles of slaves, free blacks, Native Americans, Jews, and women in the revolution. And, because I’m the teacher, we’ll play a lot of charades.
Throughout the course, I will focus on cultivating the following habits of mind:
- Exploring historical events from multiple perspectives, and understanding how perspective effects interpretation.
- Using primary sources when available, and understanding the benefits of primary resources.
- Exploring art as a unique expression of the culture and sentiments of a historical era (by looking at poetry, portraits, and political cartoons).
- Understanding the importance of preserving historical sites and documents, and committing to do so (through the National Parks Junior Ranger program).
Too much fun!
Week 1: French and Indian War Through Boston Massacre
Before class, students were instructed to watch Liberty Kids Episodes 1 & 2, and the first episode of the John Adams miniseries on HBO. They had to read the Stamp Act; You Wouldn’t Want to be at the Boston Tea Party (page 5-21); and To His Excellency George Washington by Phillis Wheatley.
Activity 1: History Pocket
As students walked in, they found a spot around the table and began to work on their portfolios, folders with projects that I copies from History Pockets: American Revolution. I attached copies of the pages we used, but you should buy the book. We sorted soldiers from the two sides into Loyalists and Rebels, and analyzed the most famous political cartoon of the era.
Activity 2: Get To Know You
Each student had to choose between 1 and 4 M&Ms. After each student chose their candy pieces, I told them the rules. Depending on how many candies they had chosen, they had to do the following:
- 1 candy: tell us your name and something you like about homeschooling
- 2 candies: tell us your name and something you like about homeschooling; share something you interesting about yourself
- 3 candies: tell us your name and something you like about homeschooling; share something you interesting about yourself; tell us one great thing about your mom
- 4 candies: tell us your name and something you like about homeschooling; share something you interesting about yourself; tell us one great thing about your mom; do 10 push-ups
Activity 3: Timeline
Using a piece of newsprint, we created a timeline from 1763 to to 1774. We included: French and Indian War (or Seven Years War), Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Stamp Act Congress, Quartering Act, Boston Massacre, Tea Act, Tea Party, and Intolerable Acts. At each stop along the timeline, kids told me what they knew about each event, and I filled in as needed. Throughout the discussion, I kept pushing them to think about how this event looked from England’s point of view. This was the hardest part of the exercise.
Activity 4: Tax Time
We simulated colonial reaction to a series of tax acts passed by Parliament to raise money to pay for the Seven Years War and to pay England for the protection of the colonies. Students pulled cards from a bowl to take on one of the following roles: King/Queen (1); Parliament (2); Tax Collector (1); Colonists (everyone else). I handed out cups of 10 pennies to each participant, sat the Queen in a tall chair, positioned Parliament just below her and explained that Parliament would draw new laws from a bowl and, when applicable, the tax collector would collect taxes, sell stamps, etc. I also explained that if you ran out of money and could not pay your tax, you would be sent to debtor’s prison and could only get out if someone else chose to pay your debt (and the daily 1 pence fee for keeping you in prison). The laws were:
- Any subject wearing denim of any sort shall pay the crown a tax of 2 pence.
- Any subject possessing a political cartoon of any sort must affix the proper stamp to said cartoon. The stamp shall cost 3 pence. (I had Air Mail stamps in the house and used those, but any stamp would do.)
- Any subject who wishes to use the bathroom shall pay a toilet tax of 2 pence.
- Any subject wearing a t-shirt must pay a cotton tax of 3 pence.
- Any subject who traveled to the homeschool meeting hall by any form of transportation involving wheels shall pay a roadway fee of 2 pence.
Homework: Color the British and American flags on the cover of your portfolio. Memorize a stanza from the Wheatley poem. Write what they think the ‘Join or Die’ cartoon means in their own words. Read George versus George (pages 8-26) and write a letter from one George to the other about any shared interest (sports, farming, politics, etc.).
Week 2: Tea Party Museum Field Trip
The museum is opening an hour early to give our class the run of the place. Here’s a description of what we’ll do there, from the museum’s website:
This floating museum is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. Live actors, high-tech, interactive exhibits, authentically restored tea ships and the stirring, multi-sensory documentary “Let it Begin Here,” are just a taste of what you’ll see, hear and feel. You will meet the colonists, explore the ships and dump tea overboard just as the Sons of Liberty did on that fateful night of December 16, 1773. Finally, you will stop in at Abigail’s Tea Room for teatime.
Homework: Start reading Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson, which tells the story of one slave’s experience of the beginning of the Revolution. Watch: Episodes 3 & 4 of Liberty Kids.
Week 3: “No More Kings”
Activity 1: Oral Presentations
Students will take turns reading aloud the letters they wrote from George to George. They’ll also recite the stanza they memorized from To His Excellency George Washington by Phillis Wheatley.
Activity 2: “No More Kings”
Every child will fold their paper in half lengthwise. On the left, they’ll write “Accurate,” and on the right “Inaccurate.” I’ll ask them to watch “No More Kings” from Shoolhouse Rock, looking for accurate and inaccurate depictions in the video. After watching it once, I’ll give them a few minutes to fill in their papers. Then we’ll watch it again, looking for accuracies and inaccuracies. Next, I’ll have them get with a partner to make a joint list. Finally, we’ll make a giant list on newsprint, with one point for each answer they come up with. If they get more than 10 points, I’ll let them have a two-minute dance party.
Activity 3: Bowl Game
I fill a bowl with 20 slips of paper. Each kid pulls out a slip and gives as many verbal clues as needed for the other kids to guess the person or event on the slip. Next, we put all of the slips back in the bowl. In round two, when they pull out a slip, they have to act it out with no words. The people and events on the slips: John Adams, Abigail Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Join Or Die, Phillis Wheatley, Boston Massacre, Tea Party, Stamp Act, Quartering Act, French and Indian War, King George, Lord North, Sam Adams, General Gage, “Taxation Without Representation is Tyranny,” Governor Hutchinson, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Crispus Attucks, Sons of Liberty.
Note: When I taught this, the day fell on Martin Luther King day. I incorporated some of these activities in to the day.
Homework: Finish reading Chains and complete the graphic organizer to analyze one character’s development. (Click here for a copy of the organizer: Graphic Organizer – Chains. I had students do the alternate assignment.)
Week 4: Chains
Activity 1: Character Clues
Students will exchange organizers (that they did for homework) with one another, and try to guess the characters using the picture and clue.
Activity 2: Headbanz
We own the game Hedbanz, and have enough bands for each child. I’ll make character cards (each card has the name of a character from the book) and place them in a pile. All student put on a head band and place a card in it without looking. The first child begins by asking YES/NO questions in attempt to guess their character before the timer runs out. If they do so, they get a token for their team (boys versus girls). If there is still time, they can take another card and ask questions until the time runs out. If time runs out before the player guesses their character, the card remains in the band until Round 2. After every player has a turn, round 1 is over. Play for two rounds and count up the points.
Activity 3: Dice Game
I prepared six categories of questions, and laid them out on the table under colored index cards, labeled: 1) True/False, 2) Fill In The Blank, 3) Book Review, 4) More Book Review, 5) Book-to-Book, and 6) Book-to-Life. Book Review questions ask them to analyze the writing, make predictions, and focus on what makes a book work or not work. Book-to-Book questions ask them to make connections between the book and other books they’ve read. And Book-to-Life questions ask them to make connections between the book and their life. Click here for a list of questions. To play, a student rolls the dice to see which type of question to answer. They can decide whether to answer the question themselves or ask everyone else to answer. Again, making it a game somehow makes it fun to have a relatively advanced discussion of literature.
Homework: Choose one of the Book-to-Book or Book-to-Life Questions from the Dice Game, and write a 5-paragraph answer to the question.
Week 5: Freedom Trail Field Trip
We’ll take a walking tour of the Freedom Trail led by an 18th century costumed guide. Students listen to the speeches of the Sons of Liberty in the places where they actually occurred and hear reenactments of the events that sparked the War for Independence. These 90 minute tours are outside and cover 11 sites from Boston Common to Faneuil Hall. Students will all bring cameras and will take pictures of the different sites.
Homework: Print pictures from tour. Watch: Liberty Kids Episodes 5 & 6. Read: George versus George (pages 28-35). Read Longfellow’s Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. Memorize any stanza from poem.
Week 6: “The Shot Heard Round the World”
Activity 1: Scrapbook Page
I’ll have a ton of scrapbooking materials available, and students can take their pictures and make one or two scrapbook pages. I’ll encourage them to write descriptive captions.
Activity 2: Paul Revere’s Ride
Students will recite the stanzas they memorized, and we’ll discuss what we like about the poem and what was misleading. Each student will then make an interactive 3-D map. You can find the lesson plan (which is excellent) and all of the materials to print in the book Interactive 3-D Maps: American Revolution. The map allows you to teach about Paul Revere’s life, as well as the ride. The front cover of the book states the projects are “maps that students make and manipulate to learn key facts and concepts – in a kinesthetic way!” My kids love them.
Activity 3: “The Shot Heard Round the World”
We’ll watch “Shot Heard ‘Round The World.” After watching it we’ll discuss why people call the battles at Lexinton and Concord the shot heard ’round the world. I’ll read them the beginning of the Emerson poem “Concord Hymn,” which is the origin of the phrase. We’ll talk about why no one could have used that phrase until decades later.
Homework: Complete the following activities in the Minute Man National Historical Park Junior Ranger Guide: A Call To Arms; Paul Revere Capture Site (Crossword and Extra Activity); Freedom, Liberty and Citizen Responsibility
Week 7: Minute Man National Park Field Trip
We’ll visit the park, see the orientation film and then complete the following activities in the Junior Ranger Guide: Minute Man Visitor Center Questions and Mural Extra Activity; Brooks HIll; The North Bridge (Doodle Like Doolittle and Reading the Landscape). When they are done, we’ll return to the visitor’s center so that kids can take their oath and receive their badge.
Homework: Read Johnny Tremaine by Esther Forbes.
Week 8: Minute Men in Action Field Trip
One of the mothers has arranged for the students to meet with Minute Men re-enactors. Among a bunch of cool activities, they will learn how to load and fire a musket and cannon.
Homework: Draw one scene from Johnny Tremaine.
Week 9: Johnny Tremaine
Activity 1: A Soldier’s Life
As students walk in, they find a spot around the table and begin to work on their portfolios, folders with projects that I copies from History Pockets: American Revolution. From Pocket Number 4: A Soldier’s Life, they will do the following: Highlight interesting facts from the background information on page 42; glue the fast facts from page 41 to a piece of construction paper, complete the Uniforms activity from pages 43-45; complete the Powder Horn activity on pages 46-48; complete the Women in the War activity form pages 52-54.
Activity 3: Dice Game
I prepared six categories of questions, and laid them out on the table under colored index cards, labeled: 1) True/False, 2) Fill In The Blank, 3) Book Review, 4) Literary Elements, 5) Book-to-Book, and 6) Book-to-Life. Book Review questions ask them to analyze the writing, make predictions, and focus on what makes a book work or not work. Book-to-Book questions ask them to make connections between the book and other books they’ve read. And Book-to-Life questions ask them to make connections between the book and their life. Click here for a list of questions. To play, a student rolls the dice to see which type of question to answer. They can decide whether to answer the question themselves or ask everyone else to answer. Again, making it a game somehow makes it fun to have a relatively advanced discussion of literature.
Homework: Watch: Episodes 7, 8, 9. Read: 1776, chapter 1 & 2.
Week 10: Bunker Hill & Breed’s Hill
Activity 1: Battles
As students walk in, they find a spot around the table and begin to work on their portfolios, folders with projects that I copies from History Pockets: American Revolution. From Pocket Number 5: Battles, they will do the following: Highlight interesting facts from the background information on page 57; glue the fast facts from page 56 to a piece of construction paper, complete the Battle of Bunker Hill activity from pages 58-60.
Activity 2: British Victory at Bunker Hill We’ll watch a short clip of the Battle of Bunker Hill from the History Channel. Students will break up into two groups to come up with arguments to support one of two positions, either that the colonists or the British won the battle.
Activity 3: Timeline Game I will fill two trash cans with 20 inflated balloons in each. 10 of the balloons will have events written on slips of paper and taped to the balloons. Students will form two teams. When I say go, the first person from each team will run to the trash can, pull out a balloon and bring it back to their team. When they tag the next person, that person will go to the can and pull out a balloon. This continues until they find all ten balloons with slips of paper. While the team is getting balloons, members who are not running can pull off the slips of paper, and arrange the events in order. They will tape the events on a poster board, and write the year of the event next to it. The first team to correctly complete their timeline wins. Events: The End of French and Indian War, Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Stamp Act Congress, Quartering Act, Boston Massacre, Tea Act, Tea Party, Intolerable Acts, Battle at Lexington and Concord, General Washington takes over command of the Continental Army, 1st Continental Congress, Phillis Wheatley writes “To His Excellency George Washington,” Battles of Bunker Hill and Breeds Hill.
Homework: Read: 1776, chapters 3 & 4; Complete the Patriots of Color Packet (reading and crossword).
Week 11: Bunker Hill Field Trip
Patriots of Color Program: Although they did not enjoy the rights of their fellow colonists, over 100 African and Native Americans fought alongside their white neighbors at the Battle of Bunker Hill in defense of liberty. Using a tour, primary documents, paintings, and hands-on activities, students will learn about twelve Native and African Americans who fought at the battle.
Mapping the Battle Program: Students will use a large canvas map to learn about mapreading skills, geography, and the importance of topography. Through several interactive activities, students will gain a better understanding of the first major battle of the Revolutionary War, and the important role that geography has played in shaping our history.
Homework: Watch: Episodes 10-12; Read: Common Sense; Independent Dames; Prepare a 3-minute oral report on an innovation of Ben Franklin’s (Students can find information on the internet, or they can read What’s the Big Idea Ben Franklin?)
Week 12: Tea Time (2.5 Hours, instead of 2 hours)
Activity 1: Understanding Common Sense (25 minutes)
We will read aloud an abridged interpretation of Common Sense. Students will work in pairs to answer questions about the document. Click here for the worksheet.
Activity 2: Oral Reports (35 minutes)
Each student will give his or her report.
Activity 3: Tea Party (1.5 hours)
Families will bring colonial treats and tea. Students will come dressed for a colonial tea. The first two activities will take place on another floor of the house, so that the parents can set the tables for a tea and can set up a dance area on the first floor. During the tea, we will teach the kids how to dance a minuet and a jig.
Homework: Watch: Episode 13 (Declaration of Independence), and Episode 2 of John Adams on HBO. Read: Declaration of Independence. Memorize: Introduction to Declaration
Week 13: Declaration of Independence
Activity 1: Jefferson’s Declaration
As students walk in, they’ll find a spot around the table and begin to work on their portfolios, folders with projects that I copies from History Pockets: American Revolution. From Pocket Number 3, they will work on Jefferson’s Declaration. They’ll highlight interesting facts from the background information on page 32. Then we’ll discuss key vocabulary: self-evident, endowed, unalienable. We’ll read the introductory statement on page 33, and students will copy the statement on the bottom of the page.
Activity 2: “Fireworks”
Watch Schoolhouse Rock “Fireworks.” We’ll watch it a couple of times and have the kids sing along and recite the introduction to the Declaration.
Activity 3: T-shirts
Give students white t-shirts and fabric markers. Have them design a t-shirt to take home. It should have one of the slogans we have learned in the class, or a phrase from the Declaration. (Examples: Give me liberty or give me death. Taxation without representation is tyranny. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Join or Die.) The shirts should also have a symbol/picture that illustrates or amplifies the phrase.
Homework: Watch: Episodes 14-19 and Episode of 2 of John Adams; Read pages 36-49 in George versus George Week 13B:
Museum of Fine Arts Field Trip
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston offers these great classes for kids, Artful Adventures. Our class is going for three-week unit on colonial and early American portraits. Each week, will spend a thirty minutes in the galleries, learning about the portraits, and then an hour in the studio working on painting a portrait.
Week 14: Crossing the Delaware
Activity 1: 3-D Map
Each student will make an interactive 3-D map. You can find the lesson plan (which is excellent) and all of the materials to print in the book Interactive 3-D Maps: American Revolution. The map allows you to teach about Washington crossing the Delaware. The front cover of the book states the projects are “maps that students make and manipulate to learn key facts and concepts – in a kinesthetic way!” My kids love them.
Activity 2: The Painting
We’ll look at the famous painting, seen at the right, and analyze what was accurate and inaccurate. This website does a great job discussing the painting. We’ll also look closely at who was in the boat with Washington. (See page for a description of who was in the boat.)
Activity 3: Writing Skits
Students will get in groups of three or four, each one taking on a character from the boat. They will write a quick character description with a bit of history (where are they from, how did they end up in the boat, etc). Then they will come up with a skit, showing the three or four characters in one fictional scene that took place sometime before the night crossing of the river.
Homework: Watch: Episodes 20-24
Week 15: Valley Forge
Activity 1: Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior
Choose 5 that you believe are important and then rewrite them in your own words. The rules can be found here.
Activity 2: Yankee Doodle Dandee
Learn song’s original meaning and write new lyrics based on two event we have studied. For background knowledge and lyrics, read pages 4-8 of this lesson plan, from the Education Department of the Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens.
Activity 3: Battles of the Revolution Board Game
Ask, “What tasks did the Patriots have to complete to become a free nation? (Be sure to include both military and civilian tasks.)” Make a list as a class. Working together, students will make a Candyland-like board game with tasks to be completed on the way to British Surrender at Yorktown. Break them into pairs. One pair will have to draw a game board, with blank squares and designated squares for tasks. They should also draw a picture of Yorktown at the end. One group will have to make four figures to compete to be the first to Yorktown. One pair should make playing cards without task pictures on them. (They can do colors, like Candyland, or numbers.) The remaining pairs will them draw task pictures on the board game and the playing cards. (You’ll need to have cardboard, markers, cut up index cards, and materials for the figures available for the students to work with.)
With remaining time, students can play the game they designed.
Homework: Read Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson; Rewrite 10 more of Washington’s Rules in your own words.
Week 15B: Museum of Fine Arts Field Trip
This is the second of a three-week unit on colonial and early American portraits.
Week 16: African American Patriots On The Freedom Trail Field Trip
The Freedom Trail in Boston offers a tour focused on the role of African American patriots. The website describes the tour: We take visitors through historic events of the American Revolution and the contributions of African-Americans such as Crispus Attucks and others who played a significant role in the country’s formation. Tales of intrigue and bravery, poetry and defiance by Black Boston townspeople in the 18th century will unfold during this unique 90 minute tour of the Freedom Trail. See the Revolution through the eyes of these sailors and soldiers, writers and craftsmen, men and women of the day.
Week 16B: Museum of Fine Arts Field Trip
This is the third of a three-week unit on colonial and early American portraits.
Week 17: Forge
Activity 1: Quill Pen
Activity 2: Colonial Money
Activity 3: Cup of Doom
Find an old soccer ball and in each hexagon, write a discussion question with a permanent marker. Have students sit in a circle and tell them that you are going to throw the ball to someone. You will say his or her name before you throw the ball. When the student catches it, he or she has to read and answer whatever question is under the left thumb. After answer the question, students say the name of another student and throw them the ball. Eventually, you can click here to see the questions I wrote on the soccer ball. If students don’t answer a question correctly or well, they have to draw a popsicle stick from the Cup of Doom. Each stick has a different ‘punishment,’ like doing 10 pushups or dancing like a chicken for 30 seconds. (Be prepared for kids to throw the question so that they can pick from the Cup of Doom. They love it!)
Homework: Watch: Episodes 31-36, and Episode 4 of John Adams. Answer one of the two questions in response to Forge.
Week 18: Yorktown
Activity 1: History Pocket
As students walk in, they’ll find a spot around the table and begin to work on their portfolios, folders with projects that I copies from History Pockets: American Revolution. From Pocket Number 6, they will highlight interesting facts from page 69; learn about secret codes and crack one of Benedict Arnold’s most important messages to the British Army; and construct a Cardan mask, a special paper cutout used to reveal secret messages and place the mask over a historical letter to reveal the letter’s true content.
Activity 2: “Bingo”
I created Bingo-type cards, with the names of: Slogans; Patriots; British and Traitors; Battles; Authors & Novels. I put clues on slips of paper, and pulled them out of a bowl. Students used highlighters to fill in their cards. We played until someone had a bingo. Eventually, you can click here to see the cards and clues.
Activity 3: Yorktown We’ll watch a History Channel video of Yorktown and discuss.
Homework: Watch: Episodes 37-40, and Episode 5 of John Adams. Read: Preamble to Constitution
Week 19: Birth of a Nation
Activity 1: History Pocket
As students walk in, they’ll find a spot around the table and begin to work on their portfolios, folders with projects that I copies from History Pockets: American Revolution. From Pocket Number 7, they will highlight interesting facts from page 81; rewrite 10 articles from the Treaty of Paris in their own words; color in the Great Seal and learn the meaning behind its symbols; and rewrite the Preamble to the Constitution.
Activity 2: “Three Ring Government” & “Preamble”
Activity 3: Electing the 1st President
The election of the first President was by appointed electors, not by a general election. All states that had approved the Constitution by the first Wednesday in January 1789 would appoint electors on that day. Those electors would assemble on the first Wednesday in February 1789 and vote for a President, and the business of running the government under the new constitution would begin a month later. Using a copy of the Senate journal, from April 6, 1789, students will work in pairs to make a bar graph of the electoral votes for the 1st president. We’ll discuss which states had the largest and smallest populations, and what might have changed the election’s outcome.
Week 20: Independence Hall National Historical Park Field Trip
We’ll visit the park (Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Ben Franklin’s Print Shop, etc). We’ll complete the following activities in the Junior Ranger Guide: 1-Liberty Bell Center; 2-Independence Hall; 6-Congress Hall; 9-Printing Office. When they are done, we’ll return to the visitor’s center so that kids can take their oath and receive their badge. We’re driving down the night before and getting a hotel. Of course, staying in a hotel and swimming in the hotel pool will be every child’s favorite memory of the class. Which makes me question the gazillion hours I just spent working on this curriculum.
Because the boys and I love unit studies, we are doing a bit more with the Revolution than we can fit into the 20-week class we are doing with other homeschoolers. Here are a few more ideas and resources:
- See Time Fly – This series of books provide a timeline of the history of Western Civilization. The purpose is twofold: (1) to develop concept imagery for language comprehension and critical thinking, and (2) to teach an imaged timeline of history. Each “flight,” or section, provides high-imagery paragraphs and beautiful artwork to help students visualize important events, periods, or people who changed history. We used the book for our Ancient China unit, and we all love it. For this unit, we are reading the sections on Ancient Greece and Rome and Scandanavia.
- Timelines – I am a kind of obsessed with making sure that the kids have something I never did, a sense of how all of the history I learned fits together, in other words an imaged timeline. In addition to the See Time Fly series, we have a giant timeline around the ceiling of the boys’ room, from which we hang picture of things we are studying. And then we enter those dates into our Wonders of Old books, which they can keep throughout high school, building an ever more elaborate internal timeline.
- A Wall Map of the United States – By now, our wall maps are tattered and smudged with peanut butter. But the boys still love maps, and as we study more parts of the world, the connections they make continue to grow.
- Trips to Mount Vernon and Monticello, the homes of Washington and Jefferson. We visit Virginia often, so they are easy trips. We’ve already been to Mount Vernon and loved it so much we became members.
- A Trip to the National Archive to see the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and The Bill of Rights.
If you want to read more about some of the ideas on this page, you may want to read these posts: