Points of View in Literature - Free Educational videos for Students in K-12

Points of View in Literature - By Warner JordanEducation

Transcript


00:01	Yeah , along right . Welcome to our podcast on
00:10	point of view , Pretty important literary turns number one
00:13	of the many that we're going to be looking at
00:15	this year . Let's go ahead and get right into
00:17	it . All right , So what is point of
00:19	view ? Point of view is basically the perspective from
00:22	which the story is told . Basically , we have
00:25	to find out who is telling this story is this
00:28	somebody who is in the story may be one of
00:30	the characters . Is this some sort of outside narrator
00:34	, a narrator who might know everything that's going on
00:37	and be able to share that with us as the
00:39	audience ? Or perhaps they are a narrator who only
00:42	knows a couple things and chooses to keep those more
00:45	secret . Point of view is the perspective that the
00:48	story is being told from point of view is important
00:51	because it lets us know who is telling the story
00:53	and at the literal level that's somewhat important . We
00:56	want to find out who that person is , but
00:58	we also want to be looking at that interpretive level
01:01	and thinking . Does this narrator know enough to tell
01:05	us the story ? Do they remember things wrong ?
01:09	Do they embellish ? Are they reliable ? Are they
01:12	not reliable ? And so the first part is we
01:16	need to identify who is talking . Is it somebody
01:18	within the story , or is it some sort of
01:20	narrator outside of that story ? And then we need
01:22	to start looking at What is there bias ? What
01:25	is their perspective ? And how might their perspective vary
01:29	from the absolute truth ? The biggest thing for us
01:32	to be looking at in terms of point of view
01:35	is that narrators reliability . Should we believe him or
01:39	her ? Can we ? Sometimes we get these narrators
01:43	who are too young , maybe too old , maybe
01:47	have proven themselves to be forgetful . Or perhaps they
01:50	are embellishing to make themselves look good as a character
01:53	. And so we have to look at that and
01:55	say What exact who exactly , is telling this story
01:58	? And then what do we need to sift through
02:01	in terms of their own bias to get at the
02:03	root of the story ? Ah , first example toe
02:05	look at point of view might be the short story
02:08	by Edgar Allan Poe called the Tell Tale Heart .
02:11	Take a look at some of the early narration here
02:14	and start asking yourself who is telling the story ?
02:17	And should we be on guard in terms off taking
02:20	him as a reliable narrator ? Or perhaps he's a
02:24	little bit unreliable . Very , very dreadfully nervous .
02:28	But why would you say that ? I'm mad ?
02:31	Uh , see how calmly how precisely . Aiken ,
02:36	tell the story to you . Listen , it starts
02:41	with the old man . A no old man in
02:44	an old house . A good man . I suppose
02:46	he had never harmed me . I didn't want his
02:48	gold . If gold there Waas , then what ?
02:51	Wasit ? I think I think it was his I
02:58	Yes , but I the i that his eyes staring
03:04	milky white film three i everywhere , everywhere in everything
03:11	. Of course , I had to get rid of
03:13	the I . So what do we do ? We
03:16	need to see which character or narrator is telling the
03:20	story . One way to do that is to look
03:22	at the pronouns that are being used . Ah ,
03:24	first person pronouns going to use things like I me
03:27	, my you know all of those first person pronouns
03:30	because that character is in the story and then telling
03:33	it from his or her perspective . Another way to
03:36	look at it is who's perspective is most obvious .
03:40	For example , in movies , sometimes we follow on
03:43	Lee one character , the camera seems toe linger on
03:46	them . It seems to show from their perspective ,
03:49	they seem to see the world from a unique point
03:52	of view . Therefore , the story is being told
03:55	through their point of view , and so we want
03:59	to make sure that we're able to discern whose angle
04:02	is the most pronounced when determining point of view .
04:06	So let's look at the three point of view perspective
04:10	. The first one is the idea of first person
04:12	point of view . The story is being told by
04:14	a character in the story . We're going to see
04:16	those first person pronouns , and then we're going to
04:19	see that speakers perspective . An example that we've had
04:22	so far is to kill a Mockingbird . The story
04:25	is told through Scout's perspective , and when we start
04:28	to look at that in terms of reliability , we
04:31	have to question can the young scout be accurate in
04:35	her remembering of what has happened ? Even though the
04:38	whole story is told by scout after the fact ,
04:42	we then have to question , can she remember accurately
04:46	if this happened in her childhood , and scout has
04:49	now aged . Might things have been mistaken ? Now
04:53	that scout has aged . She's truly telling the story
04:56	. But might she have for gotten things ? Might
04:59	she get some details wrong ? Might she embellished to
05:02	make certain people look good and other people look bad
05:05	? Those were all things that we get to play
05:07	with in our mind and start to question about when
05:09	we're looking at a first person . Narrator We want
05:12	to make sure that we're looking at the narrator and
05:15	term inning . If he or she is reliable ,
05:18	should we believe him or her ? And if we
05:20	choose not Thio , why is there something about them
05:24	that makes them unreliable ? And then , if we
05:28	are choosing to see them as unreliable , what does
05:31	that do to the story ? Which things might be
05:34	confused , Which things might be off kilter ? Those
05:37	were things that we should be paying attention to .
05:39	We mentioned this before , but Scout is a first
05:43	person narrator and we do need the question is someone
05:46	that is telling the story from flashback or who is
05:49	experiencing the story as a young girl ? Does she
05:52	have all the details , right ? And might the
05:55	truth of that story be a little manipulated ? Go
05:59	back to the tell tale heart that we looked at
06:00	before the story is told by the young man who
06:04	is in this story . But see what he says
06:07	. Does he paint a picture of a very reliable
06:09	narrator ? Might there be some things we want to
06:12	believe , but also some things we should not as
06:15	readers , we need to identify where the narrator is
06:18	. But then also , is this person reliable or
06:21	not ? Looking at the text of Forrest Gump ?
06:24	Forrest Gump tells his own story while he's sitting on
06:28	that bench waiting for the bus . Is there any
06:31	reason we should doubt the accuracy of his life story
06:35	, even though he's telling it , See what kind
06:37	of clues the filmmaker gives us to potentially have us
06:41	question his reliability ? Another part of point of view
06:45	is what we call the third person limited point of
06:48	view . This is basically that the story is told
06:51	by an outside narrator You're going to see pronouns from
06:54	that third person category . He she , they etcetera
06:58	, this narrator , somebody watching from the outside and
07:01	then telling the story from there . If they are
07:04	a limited third person narrator , that means that they
07:07	can know the thoughts and feelings of one character .
07:10	Most likely , that's going to be the main character
07:14	, the protagonist . They're going to tell the story
07:17	through that person's point of view . There are always
07:20	those times , though , where a narrator may seek
07:24	to tell the story from a different perspective and kind
07:27	of follow one other character . If the narrator does
07:30	follow some sort of minor character that creates all kinds
07:33	of issues for us in terms of what he or
07:36	she is privy to , what does that minor character
07:39	see ? What do they not ? And are they
07:42	being able to tell us the most reliable story here
07:45	again ? We need to go back to the idea
07:47	of that narrator being reliable . What might they not
07:51	see happening ? If a narrator is limited , they
07:55	can Onley get inside the brain of one character .
07:58	What if they misinterpret what another character is thinking ?
08:02	What if they don't understand what's happening behind a closed
08:06	door ? Those were all kinds of things that a
08:08	third person limited narrator might have problems with , And
08:12	so we , as readers need to decide . Should
08:15	we believe this narrator or should we question him or
08:18	her ? The third point of view that we would
08:20	look at is what we call third person omniscient again
08:24	. This is told by an outside narrator We're going
08:26	to see the pronouns in the third person . He
08:28	she etcetera . So what makes a third person omniscient
08:32	narrator different from a third person limited Narrator is the
08:36	idea that an omniscient narrator knows the thoughts and feelings
08:40	of two or more characters . They might know the
08:43	thoughts and feelings of every single character , and that
08:46	provides a very open book for us . As readers
08:49	, we are able to see what everybody is thinking
08:52	. It's very difficult to have any hidden secrets things
08:55	like that because the narrator can choose to share every
08:59	single thing at the same time . We also have
09:03	to be paying attention to when the narrator is choosing
09:05	not to share certain things with us , even though
09:09	as an omniscient narrator he or she could . So
09:12	we want to be paying attention to how maney thoughts
09:15	and feelings can this narrator no . And how Maney
09:19	is he or she is sharing with us as an
09:21	audience . We kind of mentioned this already , but
09:24	the narrator's outside . Should we believe him or her
09:28	? What happens if a nom Nisshin narrator starts out
09:31	the story telling us everything about everybody , but then
09:35	chooses to not reveal a certain point ? Might that
09:38	hidden point come back later ? Might that serve as
09:41	foreshadowing ? Might that serve as some sort of red
09:44	flag for us to be paying attention all of a
09:46	sudden that this narrator has chosen his or her mind
09:50	to not reveal everything again ? The point is we
09:54	want to check the reliability of the narrator as that
09:58	is our access point into the story . And so
10:00	we need to be paying attention to what he or
10:02	she is giving us . So in some point of
10:06	view , is the perspective from which the story is
10:08	told . We have the three major ones we have
10:10	. First person where they carry the narrator is in
10:13	the story Third Person Limited , where the narrator is
10:17	outside of the story and knows the thoughts and feelings
10:20	of probably just the main character . And then we
10:23	also have third person omniscient where the narrator is again
10:26	outside the story , but seems to know the thoughts
10:29	and feelings of two or more . Perhaps all of
10:32	the characters . And the biggest thing with all of
10:35	these is still examine the idea of reliability . Is
10:39	the narrator telling us an objective story , or is
10:42	he or she putting a slant on it ? A
10:44	bias of perspective . We need toe look at that
10:47	and then potentially questioning because , as the point of
10:52	view is revealed , that can help us get to
10:55	, as always , the deeper theme off this novel
10:58	. What does it mean when the narrator chooses not
11:02	to reveal certain things ? What does it mean when
11:04	the narrator does reveal everything ? These are the important
11:08	things that we need to examine when we're looking at
11:10	point of view . As always . Thanks for listening
11:13	. Please bring any questions and notes . You have
11:15	to class . We'll go ahead and take a look
11:17	at those . Answer any questions we can and then
11:19	start practicing right away . Thanks a lot . We'll
11:22	see you soon .

Summarizer

DESCRIPTION:

The point of view of a text and the perspective and reliability of a narrator can play a large role in understanding a text and that text's theme. Explore first person, third person - limited, and third person-omniscient narrators and how those influence texts.

OVERVIEW:

Points of View in Literature is a free educational video by Warner JordanEducation.It helps students in grades 4 practice the following standards RL.4.6.

This page not only allows students and teachers view Points of View in Literature but also find engaging Sample Questions, Apps, Pins, Worksheets, Books related to the following topics.

1. RL.4.6 : Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between first- and third-person narrations..