5-6 Weekly Reading Challenge: Test Your Skills 1
Understanding Narratives
A narrative is a form of prose writing that tells a story. Its main purpose is to entertain. Writers of narratives create experiences that are shared with the reader. To do this the writer uses literary techniques. Such techniques include figurative language (similes and metaphors), variety in sentence length and type, variety in paragraph length, and direct speech. Most narratives are in the past tense but they can be in the present tense.
In many narratives, the author is the person who wrote the story. The narrator is the person in the story who tells the story.
Read Headgear and answer the questions.
Headgear
My brother Paul is pretty devious, but I can usually tell when he’s up to something. He tries to put on an above-suspicion look. It doesn’t work. It’s so phoney it looks suspicious and I have to grin. This time it took me a whole ten seconds to know he was up to something—or wanted to keep something secret.
When I got home I poked my head around the living room divider. Paul was sitting on the lounge and not looking at me. His head was wrapped in a towel, as if he was wearing an uncomfortable turban.
I didn't say anything, which is usually a good trick to get him to talk. It worked.
"What are yer looking at?" he growled.
"Nothing," I said as sweetly as possible.
"Mum's not home," Paul growled again. "She said there’s some milk in the fridge for you."
I dropped my schoolbag and headed towards the kitchen. As I passed behind Paul he hunched his shoulders up tight. It was this movement that made me look—and stop. Paul certainly knows how to draw attention to himself!
The narrow strip of the scruff of his neck that I could see was a reddish-orange colour. In fact, the towel was covered in big blotches like some skin disease.
"Uh-oh!" I cooed.
"What are yer looking at?" he growled again, hunching his shoulders up tighter under the towel and sinking lower into the lounge as if hoping to completely disappear. "Clear off Scott," he grumbled.
"I know what you‘ve done." I used my best singsong voice. Then I added innocently, "I wonder when Mum," I paused here for effect, "or Dad will be home."
Then I dashed into the kitchen cackling.
1. Who is the narrator of the text?
