He’s a mean rooster

In the next snippet, Ort introduces the rooster out the back.

I can hear the rooster crorking out the back. He's a mean rooster—goes for your pills when you collect the eggs.

Do you see how often Ort gives us a simple detail and then adds personal commentary? You'll find that's a recurring pattern throughout these lessons.

Focus: Pick something or someone to focus on, either in view or out of sight.

Judgment: Have the narrator evaluate or judge the focus.

Expansion: Why does the narrator judge the focus in this way?

Crorking is a word made up to sound like a rooster’s "crorking" sound. (This is an example of onomatopoeia.)
Notice how an em dash is used to create—a pause. If you don’t know how to create an em dash you can use a hyphen - like this - but if you know how to use an em dash, that’ll look much nicer—like this. (You can also copy and paste an em dash from this webpage.)

The phone is bringling on the desk. It’s a customer I do not like—he’s always got something too heavy or awkward to carry safely.

I can hear the woodsman sloshing in the bathtub past the kitchen. He’s a giant man with calloused hands—but so gentle and sweet to my mama.

Write your variation here.

First person in That Eye, the Sky 1: Saying goodbye