10. A plot summary. Give a short summary of the story using the following guidelines.

1. Background

Before you get started on this assignment, you should know what it means to summarize something. To summarize means to state the main points in brief form. A good plot summary should include these features:

1. The summary should include all the story’s important events.

2. The summary should state the events in the order in which they occur.

3. The summary should explain how one event in the story causes or leads to the next one.

Your summary should also tell how the story uses the key elements of a plot. The plots of most stories follow a sequence like this:

a. The basic situation is the opening of the story where the characters and their conflict are introduced. Often this part of a story includes details that make us feel suspense - we are anxious to know What happens next?

b. The complications are all the problems that arise as the main character takes action to resolve the conflict.

c. The climax is the story’s high point. It is that emotional moment when the reader’s suspense and tension are greatest, when the reader finally realizes how the conflict is going to end.

d. The resolution is the last part of the story, where the writer ties up the loose ends of the plot and gives the story a sense of completion. In modern stories the resolution is very, very brief - some stories don’t even have one.

2. Preliminary Work

1. Go back and skim the story to review its main elements.

2. Organize the details so that they work together:

1. to make the story’s basic situation;

b) to complicate the story as the characters take steps to resolve their conflict;

c) to highlight the big event that makes the story’s climax;

d) to resolve or close the story.

3. Review the list. Have you explained how one event causes or leads to another?

3. Making a plot summary

1. State the title and the author of the story.

2. Enlist all the story’s most important events, presenting them in the order in which they occur.

3. Explain how one event leads to another.

11. A character sketch. Take one of the characters in the story – the narrator, the invigilator, an examinee (a man student or a woman student) and analyze his/her personality.

1. Background

A character is a person or animal who takes part in the action of a literary work. Characters can be described in many different ways, as follows:

• In terms of the importance of their roles: a character who plays an important role in the story a major character. A character who does not play an important role is called a minor character.

• In terms of their roles: a character who plays the central role in a story is called the protagonist. A character who opposes the protagonist is called the antagonist.

• In terms of their complexity: a complex character is called round, while a simple character is called flat.

• In terms of the degree to which they change: a character who changes is called dynamic, a character who does not change is called static.

Character types that readers recognize easily, such as the hard-boiled detective or the wicked stepmother, are called stereotypes, or stock characters.

When you analyze a character, you take a person apart to see what makes him or her tick. Remember, that in stories, as in life, a character can be revealed in five ways:

1. by speech; b. by appearance; c. by thoughts;

d. by what other people say or think about the character; e. by actions.

The act of creating and developing a character by the author is called characterization. A writer uses direct characterization when s/he states the character’s traits explicitly, Judy is selfish. Bob is frequently silly. Indirect characterization occurs when the writer reveals a character’s traits indirectly by means of what s/he thinks, says, does; by means of description of his/her appearance; or by means of the statements, thoughts or actions of other characters.