In this unit, students write their own fictional narratives while exploring elements of literature such as character, motivation, plot, setting, and theme. They start out by looking at short texts and understand how motivation and setting determine plot. They then move toward writing their own fictional narratives based around character motivations within a given setting. They create outlines, write first drafts and spend time strengthening their writing by writing dialogues, improving dialogue tags, using precise words, and trying different approaches. While they are doing this work in class they are exploring issues of such as bullying and coming of age through reading, blogging, and in-class discussion. Finally, they move back towards literary analysis including thinking about how authors use specific details to refine themes. In the end they take an assessment in which they analyze a text and write a continuation of a selection from The Kite Runner.