P.O.V

Hello grade 6! Welcome to lesson 2 on point of view. Some of you may not have heard of point of view before but at some point and time you have all experienced it while reading your own novels. We are going to look at the different points of view because you will need to consider your point of view when you are writing your own story.

What is Point of View?

Point of view is determined by the authors' descriptions of characters, setting, and events told to the reader throughout the story. There are 3 points of view we are going to focus:

First person
Second person
Third person

First Person

When we talk about ourselves, our opinions, and the things that happen to us, we generally speak in the first person. The biggest clue that a sentence is written in the first person is the use of first-person pronouns. In the first sentence of this paragraph, the pronouns appear in bold text. We, us, our,and ourselves are all first-person pronouns. Specifically, they are plural first-person pronouns. Singular first-person pronouns include I, me, my, mine and myself.

Second Person

The second-person point of view belongs to the person (or people) being addressed. This is the “you” perspective. Once again, the biggest indicator of the second person is the use of second-person pronouns: you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves.

You can wait in here and make yourself at home.

You should be proud of yourselves for finishing this enormous project!

Stories and novels written in the second person exist, but they are much rarer than narratives written from a first- or third-person perspective.

Third Person

The third-person point of view belongs to the person (or people) being talked about. The third-person pronouns include he, him, his, himself, she, her, hers, herself, it, its, itself, they, them, their, theirs, and themselves.

Tiffany used her prize money from the science fair to buy herself a new microscope.

The concert goers roared their approval when they realized they’d be getting an encore.

Plenty of stories and novels are written in the third person. In this type of story, a disembodied narrator describes what the characters do and what happens to them. You don’t see directly through a character’s eyes as you do in a first-person narrative, but often the narrator describes the main character’s thoughts and feelings about what’s going on.

Third Person Point of View

Third person is the most common point of view used in writing but there are also 3 different perspectives when we are talking about third person.

Third Person- Limited

This is when the narrator/author still uses pronouns for third person (they, them, he, she etc) but they ONLY know the thoughts and feelings of ONE character only. The Breadwinner is an example of a story told in limited omniscient POV.

Third Person- Omniscient

This is point of view where the narrator/author knows the thoughts and feelings of ALL characters. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott is a story told from omniscient POV.

Third Person-Objective

This point of view is where the narrator/author describes only the facts of what can be seen and DOES NOT know any of the thoughts and feelings of any of the characters but is considered "neutral" and just an observer. This perspective might limit the writer because they are only able to explain what a character is doing but not how they are feeling so this might have to be described in other ways.

Things to Consider When Choosing POV

Now it's Your Turn!

Not that you have looked at the 3 types of point of view, you are going to look at an image and describe ways that you could tell the particular story from different points of view. A template has been provided on Google Classroom and take a look at my example.

The example to the right shows a picture describing the 3 points of view from one table. You are the person sitting at the table telling the story is first person, the second point of view would be describing "you are having dinner with a friend when the waiter comes to take your order." Finally, the third person perspective might be the narrator talking about "two people sit down at a table to have dinner when the waiter walks by and accidentally spills the drinks on their table." The narrator (like the waiter in the image) is observing what is happening.

Remember, point of view is the lens through which the story is told.

Please take a closer look at this example when completing your own image POV activity.

Page updated

Report abuse