Perspective Shift
What you will turn in for this project: A creative rewriting of a story from a new perspective (at least 5 pages), and a 2 page discussion of your rewriting.
Rewrite / retell a portion of a story we’ve read from a different character’s point of view. You are welcome to be as creative as you wish in your choice of alternate character – but if you have any doubts, please feel free to email and discuss with me! What inspires you about this piece? What character would let you talk about what you are interested in? Pay attention to hints in the story about what the character’s “voice” and perspective would be – how would they sound? What would they notice or think about that the main character didn’t? How could their perspective build on or conflict with the original character’s philosophy or main idea?
Please note: this is not supposed to be a summary of the story. Make sure that your rewriting does not just change the emphasis of the story, but rather that it shows us some new or different ideas that would be impossible to get from the original story. You may extend before or after the story, you may change the events of the story, or you may show us things that you imagine could be happening at the same time as the story that we don’t see in the version we read for class.
With your creative rewriting, please turn in a 2 page discussion and analysis of your work. Why did you choose this character and this scene or scenes? What did you think was missing from the story that this character’s perspective allowed you to explore? Choose a couple of key sentences and analyze them closely – what do your word choice and sentence structure convey? How do these sentences help your reader understand the overall point of your rewriting?
