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Grades level iconsGrades 9–10
Session time icon60+ Minutes
Genre information iconNarrative
Video resource type iconVideos

The 5 Speeds of Scene with Sean Prentiss

by Sean Prentiss
Essayist, poet, and National Outdoor Book Award winner Sean Prentiss shares 5 techniques to use when writing scenes.
About the Author

Sean Prentiss is an essayist, poet, and professor. His book of nonfiction, Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave was awarded the National Outdoor Book Award, the Utah Book Award for Nonfiction, and the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. He is also the author of Crosscut: Poems, a memoir-in-poems about his time spent building trails in the Pacific Northwest. Prentiss is an Associate Professor at Norwich University in Vermont.

What Your Students Will Learn

You will learn new techniques for writing engaging scenes.

Common Core Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.D Common Core Standards Icon
Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid picture of the experiences, events, setting, and/or characters.
What You Will Do

STEP 1 Watch the video and read the techniques summary on page 1 of the The 5 Speeds of Scene — Handout. After you’ve watched the video, find the reflection questions on page 2. Think about real scenes, from your own life, and answer the questions about the 5 narrative techniques on the worksheet.  STEP 2 The word “dilation” means “to become bigger, more open.” You can apply this narrative technique to real or imaginary scenes that are either high-emotion or very boring. When writing, you will include more and more details so that the scene grows and grows. The...

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