Overview

Repeated Practice in this unit​​

Students read a range of interesting texts with different approaches to Point of View (PoV)​
They will discuss:​
What types of POV are used​

• The effects of the POV on them as a reader​
• How the author used that POV​
• And why​

Repeated practices linking writing to reading​

• Rewrite portions of the story from a different POV e.g. translate a third person omniscient POV account into 1st person, vice versa​
• Rewrite a first person POV from a text from the POV of a different character​
• Rewrite a portion of a text from the POV of an unreliable narrator​

Point of View – POV​​​​

The perspective or view the author presents the story from.​
A story can be told from the first person, second person or third person point of view (POV).​

Narrator​​​​

The person who is telling the story. The narrator (arguably even in a third-person objective narration, even in an autobiography) is a persona created by the author.​

Three popular forms:​​​​​

1. First Person : A character tells the story using lot of “I” and “me” or “we”, “our”, “us”.​
2. Second Person: The author uses a narrator to speak directly to the reader using lots of “you,” “your,” and “yours”. This is the least common type of narration.​
3. Third Person – A narrator who is external to the story tells it using pronouns like “he,” “she,” “it,” or “they”.​

Third person narration​​​​​​

There are three different types of third-person narration:​

1. Third-person omniscient point of view.The omniscient (all knowing) narrator knows everything about the story and its characters. The omniscient narrator can enter the mind of any of the characters and will sometimes share their own opinions and observations as well as those of the characters.​
2. Third-person limited omniscient.These narrators have “limited” omniscience because they closely follow one character and can see into his/her mind – but not into the minds of the other characters. Authors may use different limited omniscient narrators at different points of the story. Third person limited omniscient narrators help the reader get inside a particular character’s thoughts, feelings, and sensations.​
3. Third-person objective.Third-person objective point of view has a neutral narrator. The third-person narrator can observe what characters do and say but not what they think or feel.​

Why write in third person narration?​​​​​​

Third person POV gives a wider view of the action, characters etc than other types.​
A third person narrator can be anywhere and everywhere – even be in two or more places at the same time!​
Using a third person narration makes the narrator seem more authoritative and trustworthy because they are positioned outside the story and have a bird’s-eye- or god-like- view.​

Unreliable narrators​​​​​​​

An unreliable narrator is not to be trusted! ​
The unreliable narrator may be deliberately deceptive (a liar!) or unintentionally misguided (naïve) , forcing the reader to question the credibility of their account.

They may be unreliable because…​

• They are twisting things to get the readers’ sympathy​
• They exaggerate​
• They have some form of mental illness​
• They are naïve (e.g., a child or child-like)​
• They are liars​
• Or a combination of – all of the above!​