personal narrative writing lessons

Classroom Management

Classroom ideas, classroom community, 15 personal narrative mini-lessons.

Of all the writing genres, I think personal narrative is the hardest to teach, which is why I’m sharing my favorite 15 personal narrative mini-lessons.

While students all have stories to tell, I’ve found that students struggling telling their story in writing. After teaching personal narrative writing mini-lessons for years, and never feeling like I’ve done it well, I can officially say that I think I’ve found the “secret recipe.”

15 personal narrative lessons for first and second grade

I use a lot (A LOT) of mentor texts that help illustrate various personal narrative traits, but my absolute favorite is Stella Tells Her Story .

Reasons Why Stella Writes Her Story is the BEST :

It’s written by a TEACHER, someone who actually teaches students how to write personal narratives
The main character, Stella, is a second grade student who needs to write a personal narrative
Writing mini-lessons are built right write (see what I did there?) into the story
It’s super relatable for students – they are amazed to hear words that their teacher has said about writing

Day 15 – Read p. 28 – 30. Students will share their writing.I have plan shared above as a printable version is my personal narrative writing resources product, which you can find HERE , or by clicking the image below.

Nothing ever goes exactly as planned, and you may need to spend more than one day on each mini-lesson.
Publishing may take longer than one day, especially if you want students to add illustrations to their writing.
You may want to consider a “publishing party” in which you invite families to join in the writing celebration. Take pictures, have a special author’s chair, invite your administration. Students are THRILLED to have an audience (other than their teacher) with whole to share their writing.
Write your own personal narrative ahead of time. Plan where you are going to make intentional mistakes so that you can model how to revise and edit in front of your class.

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Telling the Story of Yourself: 6 Steps to Writing Personal Narratives

Jennifer Xue

Why do we write personal narratives, 6 guidelines for writing personal narrative essays, inspiring personal narratives, examples of personal narrative essays, tell your story.

First off, you might be wondering: what is a personal narrative? In short, personal narratives are stories we tell about ourselves that focus on our growth, lessons learned, and reflections on our experiences.

From stories about inspirational figures we heard as children to any essay, article, or exercise where we're asked to express opinions on a situation, thing, or individual—personal narratives are everywhere.

According to Psychology Today, personal narratives allow authors to feel and release pains, while savouring moments of strength and resilience. Such emotions provide an avenue for both authors and readers to connect while supporting healing in the process.

That all sounds great. But when it comes to putting the words down on paper, we often end up with a list of experiences and no real structure to tie them together.

In this article, we'll discuss what a personal narrative essay is further, learn the 6 steps to writing one, and look at some examples of great personal narratives.

As readers, we're fascinated by memoirs, autobiographies, and long-form personal narrative articles, as they provide a glimpse into the authors' thought processes, ideas, and feelings. But you don't have to be writing your whole life story to create a personal narrative.

You might be a student writing an admissions essay , or be trying to tell your professional story in a cover letter. Regardless of your purpose, your narrative will focus on personal growth, reflections, and lessons.

Personal narratives help us connect with other people's stories due to their easy-to-digest format and because humans are empathising creatures.

We can better understand how others feel and think when we were told stories that allow us to see the world from their perspectives. The author's "I think" and "I feel" instantaneously become ours, as the brain doesn't know whether what we read is real or imaginary.

In her best-selling book Wired for Story, Lisa Cron explains that the human brain craves tales as it's hard-wired through evolution to learn what happens next. Since the brain doesn't know whether what you are reading is actual or not, we can register the moral of the story cognitively and affectively.

In academia, a narrative essay tells a story which is experiential, anecdotal, or personal. It allows the author to creatively express their thoughts, feelings, ideas, and opinions. Its length can be anywhere from a few paragraphs to hundreds of pages.

Outside of academia, personal narratives are known as a form of journalism or non-fiction works called "narrative journalism." Even highly prestigious publications like the New York Times and Time magazine have sections dedicated to personal narratives. The New Yorke is a magazine dedicated solely to this genre.

The New York Times holds personal narrative essay contests. The winners are selected because they:

had a clear narrative arc with a conflict and a main character who changed in some way. They artfully balanced the action of the story with reflection on what it meant to the writer. They took risks, like including dialogue or playing with punctuation, sentence structure and word choice to develop a strong voice. And, perhaps most important, they focused on a specific moment or theme – a conversation, a trip to the mall, a speech tournament, a hospital visit – instead of trying to sum up the writer’s life in 600 words.

In a nutshell, a personal narrative can cover any reflective and contemplative subject with a strong voice and a unique perspective, including uncommon private values. It's written in first person and the story encompasses a specific moment in time worthy of a discussion.

Writing a personal narrative essay involves both objectivity and subjectivity. You'll need to be objective enough to recognise the importance of an event or a situation to explore and write about. On the other hand, you must be subjective enough to inject private thoughts and feelings to make your point.

With personal narratives, you are both the muse and the creator – you have control over how your story is told. However, like any other type of writing, it comes with guidelines.

1. Write Your Personal Narrative as a Story

As a story, it must include an introduction, characters, plot, setting, climax, anti-climax (if any), and conclusion. Another way to approach it is by structuring it with an introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction should set the tone, while the body should focus on the key point(s) you want to get across. The conclusion can tell the reader what lessons you have learned from the story you've just told.

2. Give Your Personal Narrative a Clear Purpose

Your narrative essay should reflect your unique perspective on life. This is a lot harder than it sounds. You need to establish your perspective, the key things you want your reader to take away, and your tone of voice. It's a good idea to have a set purpose in mind for the narrative before you start writing.

Let's say you want to write about how you manage depression without taking any medicine. This could go in any number of ways, but isolating a purpose will help you focus your writing and choose which stories to tell. Are you advocating for a holistic approach, or do you want to describe your emotional experience for people thinking of trying it?

Having this focus will allow you to put your own unique take on what you did (and didn't do, if applicable), what changed you, and the lessons learned along the way.

3. Show, Don't Tell

It's a narration, so the narrative should show readers what happened, instead of telling them. As well as being a storyteller, the author should take part as one of the characters. Keep this in mind when writing, as the way you shape your perspective can have a big impact on how your reader sees your overarching plot. Don't slip into just explaining everything that happened because it happened to you. Show your reader with action.

You can check for instances of telling rather than showing with ProWritingAid. For example, instead of:

"You never let me do anything!" I cried disdainfully.

"You never let me do anything!" To this day, my mother swears that the glare I levelled at her as I spat those words out could have soured milk.

Using ProWritingAid will help you find these instances in your manuscript and edit them without spending hours trawling through your work yourself.

4. Use "I," But Don't Overuse It

You, the author, take ownership of the story, so the first person pronoun "I" is used throughout. However, you shouldn't overuse it, as it'd make it sound too self-centred and redundant.

ProWritingAid can also help you here – the Style Report will tell you if you've started too many sentences with "I", and show you how to introduce more variation in your writing.

5. Pay Attention to Tenses

Tense is key to understanding. Personal narratives mostly tell the story of events that happened in the past, so many authors choose to use the past tense. This helps separate out your current, narrating voice and your past self who you are narrating. If you're writing in the present tense, make sure that you keep it consistent throughout.

6. Make Your Conclusion Satisfying

Satisfy your readers by giving them an unforgettable closing scene. The body of the narration should build up the plot to climax. This doesn't have to be something incredible or shocking, just something that helps give an interesting take on your story.

The takeaways or the lessons learned should be written without lecturing. Whenever possible, continue to show rather than tell. Don't say what you learned, narrate what you do differently now. This will help the moral of your story shine through without being too preachy.

GoodReads is a great starting point for selecting read-worthy personal narrative books. Here are five of my favourites.

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen, the author of 386 books, wrote this poetic story about a daughter and her father who went owling. Instead of learning about owls, Yolen invites readers to contemplate the meaning of gentleness and hope.

Night by Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. This Holocaust memoir has a strong message that such horrific events should never be repeated.

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

This classic is a must-read by young and old alike. It's a remarkable diary by a 13-year-old Jewish girl who hid inside a secret annexe of an old building during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in 1942.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

This is a personal narrative written by a brave author renowned for her clarity, passion, and honesty. Didion shares how in December 2003, she lost her husband of 40 years to a massive heart attack and dealt with the acute illness of her only daughter. She speaks about grief, memories, illness, and hope.

Educated by Tara Westover

Author Tara Westover was raised by survivalist parents. She didn't go to school until 17 years of age, which later took her to Harvard and Cambridge. It's a story about the struggle for quest for knowledge and self-reinvention.

Narrative and personal narrative journalism are gaining more popularity these days. You can find distinguished personal narratives all over the web.

Curating the best of the best of personal narratives and narrative essays from all over the web. Some are award-winning articles.

Narratively

Long-form writing to celebrate humanity through storytelling. It publishes personal narrative essays written to provoke, inspire, and reflect, touching lesser-known and overlooked subjects.

Narrative Magazine

It publishes non,fiction narratives, poetry, and fiction. Among its contributors is Frank Conroy, the author of Stop-Time , a memoir that has never been out of print since 1967.

Thought Catalog

Aimed at Generation Z, it publishes personal narrative essays on self-improvement, family, friendship, romance, and others.

Personal narratives will continue to be popular as our brains are wired for stories. We love reading about others and telling stories of ourselves, as they bring satisfaction and a better understanding of the world around us.

Personal narratives make us better humans. Enjoy telling yours!

Write like a bestselling author

Love writing? ProWritingAid will help you improve the style, strength, and clarity of your stories.

Jennifer Xue is an award-winning e-book author with 2,500+ articles and 100+ e-books/reports published under her belt. She also taught 50+ college-level essay and paper writing classes. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, Fortune, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Business.com, Business2Community, Addicted2Success, Good Men Project, and others. Her blog is JenniferXue.com. Follow her on Twitter @jenxuewrites].

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A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing

July 29, 2018

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“Those who tell the stories rule the world.” This proverb, attributed to the Hopi Indians, is one I wish I’d known a long time ago, because I would have used it when teaching my students the craft of storytelling. With a well-told story we can help a person see things in an entirely new way. We can forge new relationships and strengthen the ones we already have. We can change a law, inspire a movement, make people care fiercely about things they’d never given a passing thought.

But when we study storytelling with our students, we forget all that. Or at least I did. When my students asked why we read novels and stories, and why we wrote personal narratives and fiction, my defense was pretty lame: I probably said something about the importance of having a shared body of knowledge, or about the enjoyment of losing yourself in a book, or about the benefits of having writing skills in general.

I forgot to talk about the power of story. I didn’t bother to tell them that the ability to tell a captivating story is one of the things that makes human beings extraordinary. It’s how we connect to each other. It’s something to celebrate, to study, to perfect. If we’re going to talk about how to teach students to write stories, we should start by thinking about why we tell stories at all . If we can pass that on to our students, then we will be going beyond a school assignment; we will be doing something transcendent.

Now. How do we get them to write those stories? I’m going to share the process I used for teaching narrative writing. I used this process with middle school students, but it would work with most age groups.

A Note About Form: Personal Narrative or Short Story?

When teaching narrative writing, many teachers separate personal narratives from short stories. In my own classroom, I tended to avoid having my students write short stories because personal narratives were more accessible. I could usually get students to write about something that really happened, while it was more challenging to get them to make something up from scratch.

In the “real” world of writers, though, the main thing that separates memoir from fiction is labeling: A writer might base a novel heavily on personal experiences, but write it all in third person and change the names of characters to protect the identities of people in real life. Another writer might create a short story in first person that reads like a personal narrative, but is entirely fictional. Just last weekend my husband and I watched the movie Lion and were glued to the screen the whole time, knowing it was based on a true story. James Frey’s book A Million Little Pieces sold millions of copies as a memoir but was later found to contain more than a little bit of fiction. Then there are unique books like Curtis Sittenfeld’s brilliant novel American Wife , based heavily on the early life of Laura Bush but written in first person, with fictional names and settings, and labeled as a work of fiction. The line between fact and fiction has always been really, really blurry, but the common thread running through all of it is good storytelling.

With that in mind, the process for teaching narrative writing can be exactly the same for writing personal narratives or short stories; it’s the same skill set. So if you think your students can handle the freedom, you might decide to let them choose personal narrative or fiction for a narrative writing assignment, or simply tell them that whether the story is true doesn’t matter, as long as they are telling a good story and they are not trying to pass off a fictional story as fact.

Here are some examples of what that kind of flexibility could allow:

A student might tell a true story from their own experience, but write it as if it were a fiction piece, with fictional characters, in third person.
A student might create a completely fictional story, but tell it in first person, which would give it the same feel as a personal narrative.
A student might tell a true story that happened to someone else, but write it in first person, as if they were that person. For example, I could write about my grandmother’s experience of getting lost as a child, but I might write it in her voice.

If we aren’t too restrictive about what we call these pieces, and we talk about different possibilities with our students, we can end up with lots of interesting outcomes. Meanwhile, we’re still teaching students the craft of narrative writing.

A Note About Process: Write With Your Students

One of the most powerful techniques I used as a writing teacher was to do my students’ writing assignments with them. I would start my own draft at the same time as they did, composing “live” on the classroom projector, and doing a lot of thinking out loud so they could see all the decisions a writer has to make.

The most helpful parts for them to observe were the early drafting stage, where I just scratched out whatever came to me in messy, run-on sentences, and the revision stage, where I crossed things out, rearranged, and made tons of notes on my writing. I have seen over and over again how witnessing that process can really help to unlock a student’s understanding of how writing actually gets made.

A Narrative Writing Unit Plan

Before I get into these steps, I should note that there is no one right way to teach narrative writing, and plenty of accomplished teachers are doing it differently and getting great results. This just happens to be a process that has worked for me.

Step 1: Show Students That Stories Are Everywhere

Getting our students to tell stories should be easy. They hear and tell stories all the time. But when they actually have to put words on paper, they forget their storytelling abilities: They can’t think of a topic. They omit relevant details, but go on and on about irrelevant ones. Their dialogue is bland. They can’t figure out how to start. They can’t figure out how to end.

So the first step in getting good narrative writing from students is to help them see that they are already telling stories every day . They gather at lockers to talk about that thing that happened over the weekend. They sit at lunch and describe an argument they had with a sibling. Without even thinking about it, they begin sentences with “This one time…” and launch into stories about their earlier childhood experiences. Students are natural storytellers; learning how to do it well on paper is simply a matter of studying good models, then imitating what those writers do.

So start off the unit by getting students to tell their stories. In journal quick-writes, think-pair-shares, or by playing a game like Concentric Circles , prompt them to tell some of their own brief stories: A time they were embarrassed. A time they lost something. A time they didn’t get to do something they really wanted to do. By telling their own short anecdotes, they will grow more comfortable and confident in their storytelling abilities. They will also be generating a list of topic ideas. And by listening to the stories of their classmates, they will be adding onto that list and remembering more of their own stories.

And remember to tell some of your own. Besides being a good way to bond with students, sharing your stories will help them see more possibilities for the ones they can tell.

Step 2: Study the Structure of a Story

Now that students have a good library of their own personal stories pulled into short-term memory, shift your focus to a more formal study of what a story looks like.

Use a diagram to show students a typical story arc like the one below. Then, using a simple story—like this Coca Cola commercial —fill out the story arc with the components from that story. Once students have seen this story mapped out, have them try it with another one, like a story you’ve read in class, a whole novel, or another short video.

Step 3: Introduce the Assignment

Up to this point, students have been immersed in storytelling. Now give them specific instructions for what they are going to do. Share your assignment rubric so they understand the criteria that will be used to evaluate them; it should be ready and transparent right from the beginning of the unit. As always, I recommend using a single point rubric for this.

Step 4: Read Models

Once the parameters of the assignment have been explained, have students read at least one model story, a mentor text that exemplifies the qualities you’re looking for. This should be a story on a topic your students can kind of relate to, something they could see themselves writing. For my narrative writing unit (see the end of this post), I wrote a story called “Frog” about a 13-year-old girl who finally gets to stay home alone, then finds a frog in her house and gets completely freaked out, which basically ruins the fun she was planning for the night.

They will be reading this model as writers, looking at how the author shaped the text for a purpose, so that they can use those same strategies in their own writing. Have them look at your rubric and find places in the model that illustrate the qualities listed in the rubric. Then have them complete a story arc for the model so they can see the underlying structure.

Ideally, your students will have already read lots of different stories to look to as models. If that isn’t the case, this list of narrative texts recommended by Cult of Pedagogy followers on Twitter would be a good place to browse for titles that might be right for your students. Keep in mind that we have not read most of these stories, so be sure to read them first before adopting them for classroom use.

Click the image above to view the full list of narrative texts recommended by Cult of Pedagogy followers on Twitter. If you have a suggestion for the list, please email us through our contact page.

Step 5: Story Mapping

At this point, students will need to decide what they are going to write about. If they are stuck for a topic, have them just pick something they can write about, even if it’s not the most captivating story in the world. A skilled writer could tell a great story about deciding what to have for lunch. If they are using the skills of narrative writing, the topic isn’t as important as the execution.

Have students complete a basic story arc for their chosen topic using a diagram like the one below. This will help them make sure that they actually have a story to tell, with an identifiable problem, a sequence of events that build to a climax, and some kind of resolution, where something is different by the end. Again, if you are writing with your students, this would be an important step to model for them with your own story-in-progress.

Step 6: Quick Drafts

Now, have students get their chosen story down on paper as quickly as possible: This could be basically a long paragraph that would read almost like a summary, but it would contain all the major parts of the story. Model this step with your own story, so they can see that you are not shooting for perfection in any way. What you want is a working draft, a starting point, something to build on for later, rather than a blank page (or screen) to stare at.

Step 7: Plan the Pacing

Now that the story has been born in raw form, students can begin to shape it. This would be a good time for a lesson on pacing, where students look at how writers expand some moments to create drama and shrink other moments so that the story doesn’t drag. Creating a diagram like the one below forces a writer to decide how much space to devote to all of the events in the story.

Before students write a full draft, have them plan out the events in their story with a pacing diagram, a visual representation of how much “space” each part of the story is going to take up.

Step 8: Long Drafts

With a good plan in hand, students can now slow down and write a proper draft, expanding the sections of their story that they plan to really draw out and adding in more of the details that they left out in the quick draft.

Step 9: Workshop

Once students have a decent rough draft—something that has a basic beginning, middle, and end, with some discernible rising action, a climax of some kind, and a resolution, you’re ready to shift into full-on workshop mode. I would do this for at least a week: Start class with a short mini-lesson on some aspect of narrative writing craft, then give students the rest of the period to write, conference with you, and collaborate with their peers. During that time, they should focus some of their attention on applying the skill they learned in the mini-lesson to their drafts, so they will improve a little bit every day.

Topics for mini-lessons can include:

How to weave exposition into your story so you don’t give readers an “information dump”
How to carefully select dialogue to create good scenes, rather than quoting everything in a conversation
How to punctuate and format dialogue so that it imitates the natural flow of a conversation
How to describe things using sensory details and figurative language; also, what to describe…students too often give lots of irrelevant detail
How to choose precise nouns and vivid verbs, use a variety of sentence lengths and structures, and add transitional words, phrases, and features to help the reader follow along
How to start, end, and title a story

Step 10: Final Revisions and Edits

As the unit nears its end, students should be shifting away from revision , in which they alter the content of a piece, toward editing , where they make smaller changes to the mechanics of the writing. Make sure students understand the difference between the two: They should not be correcting each other’s spelling and punctuation in the early stages of this process, when the focus should be on shaping a better story.

One of the most effective strategies for revision and editing is to have students read their stories out loud. In the early stages, this will reveal places where information is missing or things get confusing. Later, more read-alouds will help them immediately find missing words, unintentional repetitions, and sentences that just “sound weird.” So get your students to read their work out loud frequently. It also helps to print stories on paper: For some reason, seeing the words in print helps us notice things we didn’t see on the screen.

To get the most from peer review, where students read and comment on each other’s work, more modeling from you is essential: Pull up a sample piece of writing and show students how to give specific feedback that helps, rather than simply writing “good detail” or “needs more detail,” the two comments I saw exchanged most often on students’ peer-reviewed papers.

Step 11: Final Copies and Publication

Once revision and peer review are done, students will hand in their final copies. If you don’t want to get stuck with 100-plus papers to grade, consider using Catlin Tucker’s station rotation model , which keeps all the grading in class. And when you do return stories with your own feedback, try using Kristy Louden’s delayed grade strategy , where students don’t see their final grade until they have read your written feedback.

Beyond the standard hand-in-for-a-grade, consider other ways to have students publish their stories. Here are some options:

Stories could be published as individual pages on a collaborative website or blog.
Students could create illustrated e-books out of their stories.
Students could create a slideshow to accompany their stories and record them as digital storytelling videos. This could be done with a tool like Screencastify or Screencast-O-Matic .

So this is what worked for me. If you’ve struggled to get good stories from your students, try some or all of these techniques next time. I think you’ll find that all of your students have some pretty interesting stories to tell. Helping them tell their stories well is a gift that will serve them for many years after they leave your classroom. ♦

Want this unit ready-made?

If you’re a writing teacher in grades 7-12 and you’d like a classroom-ready unit like the one described above, including slideshow mini-lessons on 14 areas of narrative craft, a sample narrative piece, editable rubrics, and other supplemental materials to guide students through every stage of the process, take a look at my Narrative Writing unit . Just click on the image below and you’ll be taken to a page where you can read more and see a detailed preview of what’s included.

What to Read Next

Categories: Instruction , Podcast

Tags: English language arts , Grades 6-8 , Grades 9-12 , teaching strategies

50 Comments

Wow, this is a wonderful guide! If my English teachers had taught this way, I’m sure I would have enjoyed narrative writing instead of dreading it. I’ll be able to use many of these suggestions when writing my blog! BrP

Lst year I was so discouraged because the short stories looked like the quick drafts described in this article. I thought I had totally failed until I read this and realized I did not fai,l I just needed to complete the process. Thank you!

I feel like you jumped in my head and connected my thoughts. I appreciate the time you took to stop and look closely at form. I really believe that student-writers should see all dimensions of narrative writing and be able to live in whichever style and voice they want for their work.

Can’t thank you enough for this. So well curated that one can just follow it blindly and ace at teaching it. Thanks again!

Great post! I especially liked your comments about reminding kids about the power of storytelling. My favourite podcasts and posts from you are always about how to do things in the classroom and I appreciate the research you do.

On a side note, the ice breakers are really handy. My kids know each other really well (rural community), and can tune out pretty quickly if there is nothing new to learn about their peers, but they like the games (and can remember where we stopped last time weeks later). I’ve started changing them up with ‘life questions’, so the editable version is great!

I love writing with my students and loved this podcast! A fun extension to this narrative is to challenge students to write another story about the same event, but use the perspective of another “character” from the story. Books like Wonder (R.J. Palacio) and Wanderer (Sharon Creech) can model the concept for students.

Thank you for your great efforts to reveal the practical writing strategies in layered details. As English is not my first language, I need listen to your podcast and read the text repeatedly so to fully understand. It’s worthy of the time for some great post like yours. I love sharing so I send the link to my English practice group that it can benefit more. I hope I could be able to give you some feedback later on.

Thank you for helping me get to know better especially the techniques in writing narrative text. Im an English teacher for 5years but have little knowledge on writing. I hope you could feature techniques in writing news and fearute story. God bless and more power!

Thank you for this! I am very interested in teaching a unit on personal narrative and this was an extremely helpful breakdown. As a current student teacher I am still unsure how to approach breaking down the structures of different genres of writing in a way that is helpful for me students but not too restrictive. The story mapping tools you provided really allowed me to think about this in a new way. Writing is such a powerful way to experience the world and more than anything I want my students to realize its power. Stories are how we make sense of the world and as an English teacher I feel obligated to give my students access to this particular skill.

The power of story is unfathomable. There’s this NGO in India doing some great work in harnessing the power of storytelling and plots to brighten children’s lives and enlighten them with true knowledge. Check out Katha India here: http://bit.ly/KathaIndia

Thank you so much for this. I did not go to college to become a writing professor, but due to restructuring in my department, I indeed am! This is a wonderful guide that I will use when teaching the narrative essay. I wonder if you have a similar guide for other modes such as descriptive, process, argument, etc.?

Hey Melanie, Jenn does have another guide on writing! Check out A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Argumentative Writing .

Hi, I am also wondering if there is a similar guide for descriptive writing in particular?

Hey Melanie, unfortunately Jenn doesn’t currently have a guide for descriptive writing. She’s always working on projects though, so she may get around to writing a unit like this in the future. You can always check her Teachers Pay Teachers page for an up-to-date list of materials she has available. Thanks!

I want to write about the new character in my area

That’s great! Let us know if you need any supports during your writing process!

I absolutely adore this unit plan. I teach freshmen English at a low-income high school and wanted to find something to help my students find their voice. It is not often that I borrow material, but I borrowed and adapted all of it in the order that it is presented! It is cohesive, understandable, and fun. Thank you!!

So glad to hear this, Nicole!

Thanks sharing this post. My students often get confused between personal narratives and short stories. Whenever I ask them to write a short story, she share their own experiences and add a bit of fiction in it to make it interesting.

Thank you! My students have loved this so far. I do have a question as to where the “Frog” story mentioned in Step 4 is. I could really use it! Thanks again.

This is great to hear, Emily! In Step 4, Jenn mentions that she wrote the “Frog” story for her narrative writing unit . Just scroll down the bottom of the post and you’ll see a link to the unit.

I also cannot find the link to the short story “Frog”– any chance someone can send it or we can repost it?

This story was written for Jenn’s narrative writing unit. You can find a link to this unit in Step 4 or at the bottom of the article. Hope this helps.

I cannot find the frog story mentioned. Could you please send the link.? Thank you

Hi Michelle,

The Frog story was written for Jenn’s narrative writing unit. There’s a link to this unit in Step 4 and at the bottom of the article.

Debbie- thanks for you reply… but there is no link to the story in step 4 or at the bottom of the page….

Hey Shawn, the frog story is part of Jenn’s narrative writing unit, which is available on her Teachers Pay Teachers site. The link Debbie is referring to at the bottom of this post will take you to her narrative writing unit and you would have to purchase that to gain access to the frog story. I hope this clears things up.

Thank you so much for this resource! I’m a high school English teacher, and am currently teaching creative writing for the first time. I really do value your blog, podcast, and other resources, so I’m excited to use this unit. I’m a cyber school teacher, so clear, organized layout is important; and I spend a lot of time making sure my content is visually accessible for my students to process. Thanks for creating resources that are easy for us teachers to process and use.

Do you have a lesson for Informative writing?

Hey Cari, Jenn has another unit on argumentative writing , but doesn’t have one yet on informative writing. She may develop one in the future so check back in sometime.

I had the same question. Informational writing is so difficult to have a good strong unit in when you have so many different text structures to meet and need text-dependent writing tasks.

Creating an informational writing unit is still on Jenn’s long list of projects to get to, but in the meantime, if you haven’t already, check out When We All Teach Text Structures, Everyone Wins . It might help you out!

This is a great lesson! It would be helpful to see a finished draft of the frog narrative arc. Students’ greatest challenge is transferring their ideas from the planner to a full draft. To see a full sample of how this arc was transformed into a complete narrative draft would be a powerful learning tool.

Hi Stacey! Jenn goes into more depth with the “Frog” lesson in her narrative writing unit – this is where you can find a sample of what a completed story arc might look. Also included is a draft of the narrative. If interested in checking out the unit and seeing a preview, just scroll down to the bottom of the post and click on the image. Hope this helps!

Helped me learn for an entrance exam thanks very much

Is the narrative writing lesson you talk about in https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/narrative-writing/

Also doable for elementary students you think, and if to what levels?

Love your work, Sincerely, Zanyar

Hey Zanyar,

It’s possible the unit would work with 4th and 5th graders, but Jenn definitely wouldn’t recommend going any younger. The main reason for this is that some of the mini-lessons in the unit could be challenging for students who are still concrete thinkers. You’d likely need to do some adjusting and scaffolding which could extend the unit beyond the 3 weeks. Having said that, I taught 1st grade and found the steps of the writing process, as described in the post, to be very similar. Of course learning targets/standards were different, but the process itself can be applied to any grade level (modeling writing, using mentor texts to study how stories work, planning the structure of the story, drafting, elaborating, etc.) Hope this helps!

This has made my life so much easier. After teaching in different schools systems, from the American, to British to IB, one needs to identify the anchor standards and concepts, that are common between all these systems, to build well balanced thematic units. Just reading these steps gave me the guidance I needed to satisfy both the conceptual framework the schools ask for and the standards-based practice. Thank you Thank you.

Would this work for teaching a first grader about narrative writing? I am also looking for a great book to use as a model for narrative writing. Veggie Monster is being used by his teacher and he isn’t connecting with this book in the least bit, so it isn’t having a positive impact. My fear is he will associate this with writing and I don’t want a negative association connected to such a beautiful process and experience. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thank you for any information you can provide!

Although I think the materials in the actual narrative writing unit are really too advanced for a first grader, the general process that’s described in the blog post can still work really well.

I’m sorry your child isn’t connecting with The Night of the Veggie Monster. Try to keep in mind that the main reason this is used as a mentor text is because it models how a small moment story can be told in a big way. It’s filled with all kinds of wonderful text features that impact the meaning of the story – dialogue, description, bold text, speech bubbles, changes in text size, ellipses, zoomed in images, text placement, text shape, etc. All of these things will become mini-lessons throughout the unit. But there are lots of other wonderful mentor texts that your child might enjoy. My suggestion for an early writer, is to look for a small moment text, similar in structure, that zooms in on a problem that a first grader can relate to. In addition to the mentor texts that I found in this article , you might also want to check out Knuffle Bunny, Kitten’s First Full Moon, When Sophie Gets Angry Really Really Angry, and Whistle for Willie. Hope this helps!

I saw this on Pinterest the other day while searching for examples of narritives units/lessons. I clicked on it because I always click on C.o.P stuff 🙂 And I wasn’t disapointed. I was intrigued by the connection of narratives to humanity–even if a student doesn’t identify as a writer, he/she certainly is human, right? I really liked this. THIS clicked with me.

A few days after I read the P.o.C post, I ventured on to YouTube for more ideas to help guide me with my 8th graders’ narrative writing this coming spring. And there was a TEDx video titled, “The Power of Personal Narrative” by J. Christan Jensen. I immediately remembered the line from the article above that associated storytelling with “power” and how it sets humans apart and if introduced and taught as such, it can be “extraordinary.”

I watched the video and to the suprise of my expectations, it was FANTASTIC. Between Jennifer’s post and the TEDx video ignited within me some major motivation and excitement to begin this unit.

Thanks for sharing this with us! So glad that Jenn’s post paired with another text gave you some motivation and excitement. I’ll be sure to pass this on to Jenn!

Thank you very much for this really helpful post! I really love the idea of helping our students understand that storytelling is powerful and then go on to teach them how to harness that power. That is the essence of teaching literature or writing at any level. However, I’m a little worried about telling students that whether a piece of writing is fact or fiction does not matter. It in fact matters a lot precisely because storytelling is powerful. Narratives can shape people’s views and get their emotions involved which would, in turn, motivate them to act on a certain matter, whether for good or for bad. A fictional narrative that is passed as factual could cause a lot of damage in the real world. I believe we should. I can see how helping students focus on writing the story rather than the truth of it all could help refine the needed skills without distractions. Nevertheless, would it not be prudent to teach our students to not just harness the power of storytelling but refrain from misusing it by pushing false narratives as factual? It is true that in reality, memoirs pass as factual while novels do as fictional while the opposite may be true for both cases. I am not too worried about novels passing as fictional. On the other hand, fictional narratives masquerading as factual are disconcerting and part of a phenomenon that needs to be fought against, not enhanced or condoned in education. This is especially true because memoirs are often used by powerful people to write/re-write history. I would really like to hear your opinion on this. Thanks a lot for a great post and a lot of helpful resources!

Thank you so much for this. Jenn and I had a chance to chat and we can see where you’re coming from. Jenn never meant to suggest that a person should pass off a piece of fictional writing as a true story. Good stories can be true, completely fictional, or based on a true story that’s mixed with some fiction – that part doesn’t really matter. However, what does matter is how a student labels their story. We think that could have been stated more clearly in the post , so Jenn decided to add a bit about this at the end of the 3rd paragraph in the section “A Note About Form: Personal Narrative or Short Story?” Thanks again for bringing this to our attention!

You have no idea how much your page has helped me in so many ways. I am currently in my teaching credential program and there are times that I feel lost due to a lack of experience in the classroom. I’m so glad I came across your page! Thank you for sharing!

Thanks so much for letting us know-this means a whole lot!

No, we’re sorry. Jenn actually gets this question fairly often. It’s something she considered doing at one point, but because she has so many other projects she’s working on, she’s just not gotten to it.

I couldn’t find the story

Hi, Duraiya. The “Frog” story is part of Jenn’s narrative writing unit, which is available on her Teachers Pay Teachers site. The link at the bottom of this post will take you to her narrative writing unit, which you can purchase to gain access to the story. I hope this helps!

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Writing Curriculum

Teach Narrative Writing With The New York Times

This teaching guide, part of our eight-unit writing curriculum, includes daily writing prompts, lessons based on selected mentor texts, and an invitation for students to participate in our 100-word personal narrative contest.

By The Learning Network

Stories can thrill, wound, delight, uplift and teach. Telling a story vividly and powerfully is a vital skill that is deeply valued across all cultures, past and present — and narrative writing is, of course, a key genre for literacy instruction at every level.

When your students think “New York Times,” they probably think of our 172-year history of award-winning journalism, and may not even realize that The Times today is full of personal narratives — on love and family , but also on how we relate to animals , live with disabilities or navigate anxiety . If you flip or scroll through sections of the paper, you’ll see that personal writing is everywhere, and often ranks among the most popular pieces The Times publishes each week.

At The Learning Network, we’ve been posting writing prompts every school day for over a decade now, and many of them invite personal narrative. Inspired by Times articles of all kinds, the prompts ask students to tell us about their passions and their regrets, their most embarrassing moments and their greatest achievements. Thousands of students around the world respond each month, and each week during the school year we call out our favorite responses .

In this unit we’re taking it a step further and turning our narrative-writing opportunities into a contest that invites students to tell their own stories. Below, you’ll find plenty of ideas and resources to get your students reading, writing and thinking about their own stories, including:

✔ New narrative-writing prompts every week.

✔ Daily opportunities for students to have an authentic audience for their writing via posting comments to our forums.

✔ Guided practice with mentor texts that include writing exercises.

✔ A clear, achievable end-product (our contest) modeled on real-world writing.

✔ The chance for students to have their work published in The New York Times.

Here’s how it works.

Start with personal-narrative prompts for low-stakes writing.

Related Article | Related Picture Prompt

Every week during the school year we publish new narrative writing prompts on a vast array of topics via our Student Opinion and Picture Prompts columns. These prompts can be a starting point to help your students start reflecting on their lives and the stories they have to tell.

Each prompt is inspired by a Times article, which is free if you access it through our site, and all are open for comment for students 13 and up. Every comment is read by Learning Network editors before it is approved.

Teachers have told us they use our prompts as an opportunity for daily writing practice, a communal space where students can practice honing voice, trying new techniques and writing for a real audience. And if students are writing formal personal narrative essays, whether for college applications, for our contest or for any other reason, our prompts might serve as inspiration to help them find topics.

Student Opinion Questions

We publish a new Student Opinion question every school day, including many that invite personal writing. Students will read a related Times article and then respond to questions that help them think about how it applies to their own lives, like these:

“ What Cultural Traditions Are Important to You? ” “ Has Forgiving Someone Ever Made You Feel Better? ” “ How Do You Get Over Rejection? ”

You can find them all, as they publish, here . Or check out our collection of 445 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing for years-worth of evergreen questions, organized into categories like family, school, personality and childhood memories.

Picture Prompts

These accessible, image-driven prompts inspire a variety of kinds of writing and we publish them Tuesday through Friday during the school year. Each week we post at least one prompt that asks students to share experiences from their lives, such as this one that invites students to write about memories of their childhood homes , and one that asks them to tell a story about a moment from their lives inspired by an image, such as this one .

You can find all of our Picture Prompts, as they publish, here . At the end of each school year, we round them all up and categorize them by genre of writing. Take a look at our collections from 2017 , 2018 , 2019 , 2020 , 2021 , 2022 and 2023 and scroll down to look for the categories like “What story does this image inspire for you?” and “Share experiences from your own life” to find many prompts that can inspire narratives.

A special “rehearsal space” for teenagers to experiment writing 100-word narratives.

To help with our Tiny Memoir contest, we posted a student forum last year asking, “ What Story From Your Life Can You Tell in 100 Words? ” In it, we lead students through a few questions, and provide a few examples, to show them how. It is still open for comment. We hope that as they search for topics and try out techniques, students will post their drafts here for others to read and comment on.

Read mentor texts and try some of the “writer’s moves” we spotlight.

The Times is full of wonderful writing that can serve as mentor texts for helping students look at the various elements of the genre and think about how to weave specific craft moves into their own writing. We have a couple of ways students can use them for narrative writing.

Mentor Texts Lessons

For our 2023 Tiny Memoir Contest for Students, in which students are invited to describe a meaningful true moment from their lives in 100 words or fewer, we have a set of mentor texts, all of which can be found in our step-by-step guide: How to Write a 100-Word Narrative: A Guide for Our Tiny Memoir Contest . The 25 texts we use can also be found in this PDF .

During the years when we ran a Personal Narrative Contest that allowed students 600 words to tell a story, we broke narrative writing into several key elements and spotlighted a mentor text that does a particularly good job at each. All of them are still applicable to our new contest, which spotlights the same qualities, just in miniature. They have also been woven in to our step-by-step guide :

Tell a story about a small but memorable event or moment in your life.

Use details to show, not tell.

Write from your own point of view, in your real voice.

Use dialogue effectively.

Drop the reader into a scene.

Tell a complete story, with a true narrative arc.

Reflect on the experience and give the reader a take-away.

After students read each of the mentor texts on this list and focus on a specific technique, we invite them to “Now Try This” via an exercise that helps them practice that element. Then, we provide additional mentor text examples, as well as a list of questions to consider while reading any of them. The goal is to demystify what good writing looks like, and encourage students to practice concrete exercises to use those techniques.

Annotated by the Author

But our favorite mentor texts to assign? The work of the teenage winners of our narrative contests. Here are the 2019 , 2020 and 2021 collections of our Personal Narrative Contest. And here are the winners of our first-ever 100-Word Narrative Contest . Which of these pieces do your students like best? What “writer’s moves” might they emulate in their own work?

We also invited three teenagers who won our 2019 contest to annotate their winning narratives for our “Annotated by the Author” series. In these pieces, they demystify their writing process and share ideas other students can try in their own essays.

Annotated by the Author: ‘Speechless’

Annotated by the Author: ‘Pants on Fire’

Annotated by the Author: ‘Cracks in the Pavement’

In addition, we have a piece annotated by the college-aged author of a winning Modern Love piece. In Annotated by the Author: ‘Why Can’t Men Say “I Love You” to Each Other?’ Ricardo F. Jaramillo tells us how to make your reader want to keep reading, how to balance scenes and ideas, why you can’t write a personal essay without “looking inside,” and much more.

Enter our “ Tiny Memoir” Personal Narrative Essay Contest .

At this point in the unit, your students will have practiced writing about their lives using our many prompts. They will also have read several mentor texts, and practiced elements of personal writing with each one. Now, we hope, they can produce a polished piece of writing that brings it all together.

For three years, we ran a personal narrative contest that asked for a “short, powerful story about a meaningful life experience” in 600 words or less. But last year, we debuted our Tiny Memoir Contest that challenged students to tell us a story from their lives in just 100 words. The results blew us away. Teachers told us it was one of the most engaging assignments they gave all year and that the word limit made students’ writing much more focused and powerful. So this year, we’re running it again. We hope this contest will be fun for your students, and a useful exercise if they are going on to write longer pieces, such as a college essay.

Beyond a caution to write no more than 100 words, our contest is fairly open-ended. We’re not asking students to write to a particular theme or use a specific structure or style; instead, we encourage them to experiment and produce something that they feel represents their real voice, telling a tale that matters to them.

All student work will be read by Times editors or journalists and/or by educators from around the country. Winners will have their work published on our site and, perhaps, in the print New York Times.

Though our 100-word contest is slightly different than the original, we still recommend that before students submit, they watch this two-minute video in which student winners from past years share advice on the writing, editing and submission process. Ask students:

What techniques did these students employ that helped make their entries successful?

What did these students gain from having entered this contest? What were some of the challenges they encountered?

What advice can your students use as they work on their own submissions?

This contest will run from Oct. 4 to Nov. 1, 2023. We will link the official announcement here when it publishes, but in the meantime, here are last year’s rules and guidelines , which will remain largely the same.

Additional Resources

While the core of our unit is the prompts, mentor texts and contest, we also offer additional resources to inspire and support teachers, including lesson plans and great ideas from our readers around personal narrative writing.

Lesson Plans

“ From ‘Lives’ to ‘Modern Love’: Writing Personal Essays With Help From The New York Times ”

“ I Remember: Teaching About the Role of Memory Across the Curriculum ”

“ Creative State of Mind: Focusing on the Writing Process ”

“ Writing Narratives With ‘Tiny Love Stories’ ”

“ Telling Short, Memorable Stories With Metropolitan Diary ”

Reader Ideas

“ Flipping the Script on the College Essay With Help From The New York Times ”

“ Teaching Great Writing One Sentence at a Time ”

“ Using the Modern Love Podcast to Teach Narrative Writing ”

“ Fostering Selfhood and Inspiring Student Writers Using ‘Metropolitan Diary’ ”

Teaching Narrative Writing With The New York Times (On-Demand)

Personal Narratives From the Newsroom to the Classroom (On-Demand)

How To Introduce Personal Narrative Writing Complete Lesson Plan

Personal narratives are one of the most important types of writing secondary students will learn because this is a type of writing that students will do at some point in life beyond high school. Essentially any time they tell a story, whether in an informal situation with friends or in a more formal setting, they’ll be using the structure of a personal narrative.

Step-By-Step Lesson For Personal Narrative Writing:

1.) do not tell your students what personal narratives are..

In this lesson you will not tell your students what narratives are. You will not give them a slideshow or a definition. You will allow your students to read and listen to narratives, and they will decide what the narrative form is by interacting with several narrative writing pieces.

The reason for this is because learning will sink in more deeply if you allow your students to discover what the narrative form is by interacting with several narratives, rather than simply telling them what others have agreed on. It’s actually quite challenging defining a genre, and the process itself can be meaningful.

2.) Compile several high interest personal narratives.

Compile a few high-interest narratives.Don’t worry we’ve got you covered for this (see the bottom of this post).

In order for this to work, students need to be engaged in the narratives they are reading and listening to. Gary Soto’s narratives are short, and easy-to-follow, which can make them a great place for an intro to narrative writing. Check out “The Pie” by Gary Soto if you want to get a feel for his work.

It’s also important that students listen to personal narratives, so find a few outstanding episodes of The Moth podcasts or StoryCorp . Both podcasts have many episodes about the lives of teens.

Keep reading, or scroll to the bottom for our free lesson that includes a list of narratives you can use for this part!

3.) Give students a handout for recording their observations.

On the handout, you’ll want to give students a place to jot down important information and then look for similarities in all the narratives that they read and listen to. This will help them start to see how all the narratives share some common key features, although each story is also incredibly unique.

Grab our free handout when you download this lesson (scroll to the bottom of the post)!

4.) After your students have listened to and read narratives, reconvene as a class to discuss.

Ask students what features ALL the narratives have? What do only some have? How are they all different and unique?

Hopefully students will notice that all the narratives are from the first-person perspective. They might notice that many included some type of conflict, although some of the conflicts were “big” struggles, and some conflicts were more day-to-day obstacles.

You could discuss the value of writing about all different types of struggles.

There are a ton of observations that students can make about the similarities and differences between these narratives, and it might be challenging for students to see elements that they ALL have in common, but this process is meaningful as you attempt to define a genre (hint: it’s not always so easy to do).

5.) Encourage students to start thinking about their own stories.

Encourage students to start thinking about their lives in terms of stories. This can be hard to do at first, but hopefully through interacting with these amazing narrative pieces, they’ve seen that a narrative does not have to be about a big dramatic event. It can be about simple, every day things also.

Personal narratives are worth revisiting every single year for secondary students because it’s a type of writing they will do beyond high school.

The best way to get students thinking about personal narrative writing is through diving into several personal narratives, both written and oral.

Be sure to give students a purposeful handout that guides them through finding similarities and differences in the personal narratives.

Your free lesson on narrative writing:

Free Lesson Plan Narrative Writing

Narrative Writing Intro Handout For Students

Become a member and get our complete TWO-week unit on personal narrative writing. It’s open-and-go, so no prep for you!:

Join the English Teacher Vault membership and get access to over 250 ready-to-go lessons.

How To Write A Personal Narrative + 5 Personal Narrative Examples

Tell us about yourself.

Scary, right!?

Welcome to the art of writing personal narratives.

It’s one of the most intimidating but powerful writing styles out there.

But don’t worry. We got your back.

Below, we’re breaking it all down with narrative writing examples.

By the end, you’ll have the tips you need to get it done…and done well.

So grab your notepad, and let’s dive in.

What Is a Personal Narrative?

Read several personal narratives, pick a topic, hash out thoughts, feelings, and metaphors, create an outline, write a first draft, me talk pretty one day by david sedaris, goodbye to all that by joan didion, typical first year professor by roxane gay, shooting an elephant by george orwell, your brain’s response to your ex, according to neuroscience by amy paturel, final thoughts.

Broadly speaking, a personal narrative is a literary category wherein people creatively explore events in their lives. In addition to telling the tale, personal narratives include pointed reflections, associated feelings, and related life lessons.

The style is frequently used to encourage creative, free-flow writing.

Though similar to memoirs, autobiographies, and personal essays, personal narratives have distinct qualities. Here’s how they differ from the other self-focused literary styles.

Memoirs : Personal narratives and memoirs are the most closely related. However, memoirs are typically broader in scope and usually feature other parties.
Autobiographies : Generally, autobiographies are less creative than personal narratives. Instead, they focus on the chronology of one’s life and typically lack a reflective element.
Personal Essays: Overall, personal essays are more formal than personal narratives.

How To Write a Personal Narrative

How do you write a personal narrative? As is the case with all writing, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t exist. However, there are a few steps that many people find helpful. Let’s take a look.

Read several personal narratives before you set pen to paper — or fingertips to keys. It’s the best way to understand the genre and may spark ideas. Besides, reading makes you a better writer.

Pay attention to what you like best about others’ personal narratives and try to incorporate similar features into your own. The goal isn’t to copy other authors’ styles but instead to get a better idea of structure and tone.

If you’re looking for titles, check out the list below.

After you’ve read several personal narratives, it’s time to brainstorm.

While using a computer or notes app is perfectly fine, experts encourage people to brainstorm with a pen and paper. Scientists aren’t sure why, exactly, manual writing unlocks creativity at a higher level and improves cognitive function; they just know that it does.

When brainstorming, don’t worry about writing well. The objective is to get what’s in your head out. Don’t judge what comes out. Just let it flow. Most people are surprised at the ideas they’re able to generate through this simple process. Who knows, you may shock yourself!

Once you’ve brainstormed, choose a topic.

Remember, personal narratives typically focus on a single experience, thought, or idea. That’s what differentiates them from memoirs and autobiographies, which cover longer periods of people’s lives.

Try to pick something that deeply resonates with you and lends itself to exploring lessons and reflective ideas.

Once you’ve established your topic, it’s time to start thinking about what you want to say. What ideas do you want to convey? What feelings do you want to emote?

Including metaphors is a great idea as they add depth and humor to the piece. But be careful; clunky metaphors can drag a work down.

Once you’ve sketched out some ideas, make an outline. This will make the actual writing process a lot easier. The main headers should define the flow of the piece with details included under each.

Some writers prefer to make detailed outlines, while others use a looser style. The choice is yours. Experiment with both to see which works best for you.

It’s finally time to write the first draft! Weave the ideas in your outline into prose.

Again, don’t worry too much about perfecting it the first time. Many writers would argue that a good first draft is always bad. It’s the time to blurt out ideas in a semi-coherent manner.

When “penning” a first draft, try to keep it moving. If you can’t think of the exact right word, put an “X” and keep on going. This may be difficult at first, but the more you do it, the easier it will become.

Once you have the first draft down, it’s time to edit. This is where the magic happens.

Take each sentence one by one. Examine it.

Can you use stronger words — especially verbs?
Consider if each sentence adds value to the story and themes.
Is it cohesive?
Does it trigger emotions?
Have you painted a picture to which others can relate?

Don’t stop at just one edit. Go through it two or three times. Moreover, give yourself at least a few hours between each revision to give your eyes a rest.

5 Personal Narrative Examples

We’ve discussed the definition of a personal narrative and the steps to writing one. Now, let’s review a handful of examples.

Me Talk Pretty One Day is both the name of a personal narrative and a best-selling collection of essays published in 2000 by David Sedaris. The former is an account of a French class the author took in Paris after moving to France.

His short personal narrative details the humorist’s experience under the lethal linguistic sword of an exceptionally caustic teacher (aka, the “wild animal”), the camaraderie forged between the classmates and the joy of finally understanding a fluent speaker in one’s non-native tongue.

Written in a plain and personal style, Me Talk Pretty One Day is an excellent example of taking a single event and extrapolating universal — and funny — life lessons.

Notable Passage: At the age of forty-one, I am returning to school and have to think of myself as what my French textbook calls “a true debutant.” After paying my tuition, I was issued a student ID, which allows me a discounted entry fee at movie theaters, puppet shows, and Festyland, a far-flung amusement park that advertises with billboards picturing a cartoon stegosaurus sitting in a canoe and eating what appears to be a ham sandwich.

Written in 1967 and beginning with the line, “It’s easy to see the beginning of things, and harder to see the end,” Goodbye to All That was Joan Didion’s exploration of what it was like to fall out of love with New York City.

Having arrived as a naive and hopeful 20-year-old, the essayist describes her dingy apartment, lack of financial resources, and the things that made Manhattan magical.

Through the course of the piece, however, her angst begins to unravel, and she starts to realize that the “city that never sleeps” was not a good fit as she grew into a full-fledged adult.

Written in Didion’s distinct style, Goodbye to All That is a glowing example of a personal narrative about lost love, growing up, and the ups and downs of one’s twenty-something decade.

Notable Passage: That was the year, my twenty-eight, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and ever procrastination, every word, all of it.

“I go to school for a very long time and get some degrees and finally move to a very small town in the middle of a cornfield.” So begins Roxane Gay’s personal narrative entitled Typical First Year Professor is about her inaugural 12 months as

The glory of having one’s own office, printer, and nameplate on the door, and the agony of only getting paid once a month, enduring ludicrous lies about missed assignments, and the stress of achieving tenure.

Written in the first-person, present tense, Typical First Year Professor is a tightly worded, funny, and relatable personal narrative about starting a new life and all the insecurities that come with such a journey.

Notable Passage: I try to make class fun, engaging, experiential. We hold a mock debate about social issues in composition. We use Twitter to learn about crafting micro content in new media writing. We play Jeopardy! To learn about professional reports in professional writing. College and kindergarten aren’t as different as you’d think.

Composed in 1936, George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant is an account of the venerated author’s time as a British cop in Burma. As the title suggests, it tells the story of when Orwell was tasked with taking out an elephant.

An exploration of being an outsider, Orwell weaved his insecurities about his position in life and not loving his job into a story about a moment in his life when he did something he knew he had to do but didn’t want to.

Although Orwell is best known for his magnum opus, Nineteen Eighty-Four , Shooting an Elephant gives readers a peek into who he was as a man and his values.

Notable Passage: But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow, it always seems worse to kill a large animal.) Besides, there was the beast’s owner to be considered.

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Billed as an essay about “the good and the bad of what happens when you connect with an old flame,” Your Brain’s Response to Your Ex, According to Neuroscience is a unique personal narrative disguised as science writing.

Amy Paturel describes what it was like to meet up with a serious ex after 15 years apart and getting married and having a child.

A clinical lesson in how hormones and the brain work to bond us to past loves, Your Brain’s Response is also a personal narrative of what it was like to meet up with someone you once passionately loved as a young adult in middle age.

Notable Passage: Today, our lives couldn’t be more disparate. He’d been living in a loop since I left — upscale dinners, regular happy hours, exotic vacations — and before his engagement, a different woman by his side every few years. I married, bore three children and spent most days with a toddler attached at the hip — or more often the knee because both hands are full.

Personal narratives are one of the most engaging writing styles available. While they’re frequently used for school and job applications, they’re also a great way to flex your creative writing muscle.

Again, the best way to become a personal narrative writing rockstar is to read lots of them. Good places to check them out include:

The New York Times
The New Yorker
The Atlantic
O, the Oprah Magazine
Cosmopolitan
Harper’s Magazine
The Antioch Review
McSweeney’s

Don’t be afraid to experiment, and do your best to focus on a single event. Narrow things down and be concise. Moreover, use words people know. While word choice should be a focus, do your best to avoid using words that go over people’s heads.

And remember, the gold is in the editing.

Good luck! Be you.

Teaching Narrative Writing with Must Have Lessons

October 19, 2023 | Leave a Comment

Whether teaching personal or fictional narrative writing, there are some lessons you just shouldn’t skip.

Components of Narrative Writing

The first lessons I begin when teaching narratives is to start with what narratives are. We read a few personal narrative type stories and then we dive into our beginning lessons. I’ll reference some of the stories we read to discuss what they all have in common. Students are shown short examples and we determine if they are personal narratives.

When I teach fiction writing I repeat a similar lesson. Students reference a fictional narrative checklist and learn how to use it to check if the short stories they hear are fictional or not.

For me, it’s important to show examples and non-examples to students.

Starting in kindergarten, students learn during reading lessons that a story should have a beginning, middle, and end. These lessons should continue in writing.

First lessons in story plot should be helping students figure out the parts of their story. After they have mastered that, we can move onto learning how to make a story engaging by adding details to our story settings.

During second grade I like to explicitly teach different types of story settings and provide lessons for each part of the plot separately. I also teach personal and fictional narratives separately.

When teaching fictional narratives, my lessons for plot are a little different. I like to introduce students briefly to types of plots they can find (and write) in fiction stories. This might include suspense and adventure. I am trying to show my young writers how to start building the roller coaster feel of a good story.

Small Moments

Several lessons in my personal narrative unit are dedicated to slowing down and focusing on small moments. Small moments can be difficult for students to understand. It’s a necessary series of lessons to make sure to teach as the concept of slowing down a story becomes important again in fiction writing.

For me, teaching small moments begins with a lesson on sorting big and small moments. I really want students to understand the difference of what makes a small moment. I feel like not understanding small moments is where students can get stuck. Showing them examples and non-examples similar to our lessons on what are narratives can really help.

Story Illustrations

Our young writers usually learn that our pictures must match our writing and to add details. Often, I feel this is where our writing lessons about illustrations end. There are many great lessons we can teach students about the art behind story illustrations.

Due to limited time in the classroom, I can’t teach everything I’d love to about story pictures. I have to pick what I consider the most important lessons.

During both fictional narratives and personal narratives are when I teach my students about the power of illustrations. As we read our mentor texts I am also having students take note of what they see in the illustrations.

Some of the things we might discuss are our character emotions and additional details in the illustrations that are not in the story. Here I really want my students to learn that there is more to illustrations than just matching their illustration to their words. Illustrations can help tell the story.

Question Words

The power of writing good stories lies in the ability to ask and answer questions.

Since second grade reading lessons focus on asking and answering questions, I like to tie these lessons into our writing as well. I break apart types of questions (who, what, when, where, why and how) and take a week to dive into the differences.

Teaching about asking who I show my students how to add adjectives to tell about their character. Then we work on some examples on asking the question of who to add these details. These lessons are short and sweet but can really help students with specifics when we say “add details.” Do they know what we mean when we are asking that?

There are so many more ideas I could share about lessons we can teach for narrative writing but these are the ones I feel are the most important. Of course in between these lessons are the mini lessons about punctuation, grammar, and organization.

Tell me, what are your most important lessons when teaching narrative writing?

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Narrative Writing: A Complete Guide for Teachers and Students

MASTERING THE CRAFT OF NARRATIVE WRITING

Narratives build on and encourage the development of the fundamentals of writing. They also require developing an additional skill set: the ability to tell a good yarn, and storytelling is as old as humanity.

We see and hear stories everywhere and daily, from having good gossip on the doorstep with a neighbor in the morning to the dramas that fill our screens in the evening.

Good narrative writing skills are hard-won by students even though it is an area of writing that most enjoy due to the creativity and freedom it offers.

Here we will explore some of the main elements of a good story: plot, setting, characters, conflict, climax, and resolution . And we will look too at how best we can help our students understand these elements, both in isolation and how they mesh together as a whole.

WHAT IS A NARRATIVE?

A narrative is a story that shares a sequence of events , characters, and themes. It expresses experiences, ideas, and perspectives that should aspire to engage and inspire an audience.

A narrative can spark emotion, encourage reflection, and convey meaning when done well.

Narratives are a popular genre for students and teachers as they allow the writer to share their imagination, creativity, skill, and understanding of nearly all elements of writing. We occasionally refer to a narrative as ‘creative writing’ or story writing.

The purpose of a narrative is simple, to tell the audience a story. It can be written to motivate, educate, or entertain and can be fact or fiction.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING NARRATIVE WRITING

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Teach your students to become skilled story writers with this HUGE NARRATIVE & CREATIVE STORY WRITING UNIT . Offering a COMPLETE SOLUTION to teaching students how to craft CREATIVE CHARACTERS, SUPERB SETTINGS, and PERFECT PLOTS .

Over 192 PAGES of materials, including:

TYPES OF NARRATIVE WRITING

There are many narrative writing genres and sub-genres such as these.

We have a complete guide to writing a personal narrative that differs from the traditional story-based narrative covered in this guide. It includes personal narrative writing prompts, resources, and examples and can be found here.

narrative writing | how to write quest narratives | Narrative Writing: A Complete Guide for Teachers and Students | literacyideas.com

As we can see, narratives are an open-ended form of writing that allows you to showcase creativity in many directions. However, all narratives share a common set of features and structure known as “Story Elements”, which are briefly covered in this guide.

Don’t overlook the importance of understanding story elements and the value this adds to you as a writer who can dissect and create grand narratives. We also have an in-depth guide to understanding story elements here .

CHARACTERISTICS OF NARRATIVE WRITING

Narrative structure.

ORIENTATION (BEGINNING) Set the scene by introducing your characters, setting and time of the story. Establish your who, when and where in this part of your narrative

COMPLICATION AND EVENTS (MIDDLE) In this section activities and events involving your main characters are expanded upon. These events are written in a cohesive and fluent sequence.

RESOLUTION (ENDING) Your complication is resolved in this section. It does not have to be a happy outcome, however.

EXTRAS: Whilst orientation, complication and resolution are the agreed norms for a narrative, there are numerous examples of popular texts that did not explicitly follow this path exactly.

NARRATIVE FEATURES

LANGUAGE: Use descriptive and figurative language to paint images inside your audience’s minds as they read.

PERSPECTIVE Narratives can be written from any perspective but are most commonly written in first or third person.

DIALOGUE Narratives frequently switch from narrator to first-person dialogue. Always use speech marks when writing dialogue.

TENSE If you change tense, make it perfectly clear to your audience what is happening. Flashbacks might work well in your mind but make sure they translate to your audience.

THE PLOT MAP

narrative writing | structuring a narrative | Narrative Writing: A Complete Guide for Teachers and Students | literacyideas.com

This graphic is known as a plot map, and nearly all narratives fit this structure in one way or another, whether romance novels, science fiction or otherwise.

It is a simple tool that helps you understand and organise a story’s events. Think of it as a roadmap that outlines the journey of your characters and the events that unfold. It outlines the different stops along the way, such as the introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, that help you to see how the story builds and develops.

Using a plot map, you can see how each event fits into the larger picture and how the different parts of the story work together to create meaning. It’s a great way to visualize and analyze a story.

Be sure to refer to a plot map when planning a story, as it has all the essential elements of a great story.

THE 5 KEY STORY ELEMENTS OF A GREAT NARRATIVE (6-MINUTE TUTORIAL VIDEO)

This video we created provides an excellent overview of these elements and demonstrates them in action in stories we all know and love.

HOW TO WRITE A NARRATIVE

Now that we understand the story elements and how they come together to form stories, it’s time to start planning and writing your narrative.

In many cases, the template and guide below will provide enough details on how to craft a great story. However, if you still need assistance with the fundamentals of writing, such as sentence structure, paragraphs and using correct grammar, we have some excellent guides on those here.

USE YOUR WRITING TIME EFFECTIVELY: Maximize your narrative writing sessions by spending approximately 20 per cent of your time planning and preparing. This ensures greater productivity during your writing time and keeps you focused and on task.

Use tools such as graphic organizers to logically sequence your narrative if you are not a confident story writer. If you are working with reluctant writers, try using narrative writing prompts to get their creative juices flowing.

Spend most of your writing hour on the task at hand, don’t get too side-tracked editing during this time and leave some time for editing. When editing a narrative, examine it for these three elements.

Spelling and grammar ( Is it readable?)
Story structure and continuity ( Does it make sense, and does it flow? )
Character and plot analysis. (Are your characters engaging? Does your problem/resolution work? )

1. SETTING THE SCENE: THE WHERE AND THE WHEN

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The story’s setting often answers two of the central questions in the story, namely, the where and the when. The answers to these two crucial questions will often be informed by the type of story the student is writing.

The story’s setting can be chosen to quickly orient the reader to the type of story they are reading. For example, a fictional narrative writing piece such as a horror story will often begin with a description of a haunted house on a hill or an abandoned asylum in the middle of the woods. If we start our story on a rocket ship hurtling through the cosmos on its space voyage to the Alpha Centauri star system, we can be reasonably sure that the story we are embarking on is a work of science fiction.

Such conventions are well-worn clichés true, but they can be helpful starting points for our novice novelists to make a start.

Having students choose an appropriate setting for the type of story they wish to write is an excellent exercise for our younger students. It leads naturally onto the next stage of story writing, which is creating suitable characters to populate this fictional world they have created. However, older or more advanced students may wish to play with the expectations of appropriate settings for their story. They may wish to do this for comic effect or in the interest of creating a more original story. For example, opening a story with a children’s birthday party does not usually set up the expectation of a horror story. Indeed, it may even lure the reader into a happy reverie as they remember their own happy birthday parties. This leaves them more vulnerable to the surprise element of the shocking action that lies ahead.

Once the students have chosen a setting for their story, they need to start writing. Little can be more terrifying to English students than the blank page and its bare whiteness stretching before them on the table like a merciless desert they must cross. Give them the kick-start they need by offering support through word banks or writing prompts. If the class is all writing a story based on the same theme, you may wish to compile a common word bank on the whiteboard as a prewriting activity. Write the central theme or genre in the middle of the board. Have students suggest words or phrases related to the theme and list them on the board.

You may wish to provide students with a copy of various writing prompts to get them started. While this may mean that many students’ stories will have the same beginning, they will most likely arrive at dramatically different endings via dramatically different routes.

narrative writing | story elements | Narrative Writing: A Complete Guide for Teachers and Students | literacyideas.com

A bargain is at the centre of the relationship between the writer and the reader. That bargain is that the reader promises to suspend their disbelief as long as the writer creates a consistent and convincing fictional reality. Creating a believable world for the fictional characters to inhabit requires the student to draw on convincing details. The best way of doing this is through writing that appeals to the senses. Have your student reflect deeply on the world that they are creating. What does it look like? Sound like? What does the food taste like there? How does it feel like to walk those imaginary streets, and what aromas beguile the nose as the main character winds their way through that conjured market?

Also, Consider the when; or the time period. Is it a future world where things are cleaner and more antiseptic? Or is it an overcrowded 16th-century London with human waste stinking up the streets? If students can create a multi-sensory installation in the reader’s mind, then they have done this part of their job well.

Popular Settings from Children’s Literature and Storytelling

Fairytale Kingdom
Magical Forest
Village/town
Underwater world
Space/Alien planet

2. CASTING THE CHARACTERS: THE WHO

Now that your student has created a believable world, it is time to populate it with believable characters.

In short stories, these worlds mustn’t be overpopulated beyond what the student’s skill level can manage. Short stories usually only require one main character and a few secondary ones. Think of the short story more as a small-scale dramatic production in an intimate local theater than a Hollywood blockbuster on a grand scale. Too many characters will only confuse and become unwieldy with a canvas this size. Keep it simple!

Creating believable characters is often one of the most challenging aspects of narrative writing for students. Fortunately, we can do a few things to help students here. Sometimes it is helpful for students to model their characters on actual people they know. This can make things a little less daunting and taxing on the imagination. However, whether or not this is the case, writing brief background bios or descriptions of characters’ physical personality characteristics can be a beneficial prewriting activity. Students should give some in-depth consideration to the details of who their character is: How do they walk? What do they look like? Do they have any distinguishing features? A crooked nose? A limp? Bad breath? Small details such as these bring life and, therefore, believability to characters. Students can even cut pictures from magazines to put a face to their character and allow their imaginations to fill in the rest of the details.

Younger students will often dictate to the reader the nature of their characters. To improve their writing craft, students must know when to switch from story-telling mode to story-showing mode. This is particularly true when it comes to character. Encourage students to reveal their character’s personality through what they do rather than merely by lecturing the reader on the faults and virtues of the character’s personality. It might be a small relayed detail in the way they walk that reveals a core characteristic. For example, a character who walks with their head hanging low and shoulders hunched while avoiding eye contact has been revealed to be timid without the word once being mentioned. This is a much more artistic and well-crafted way of doing things and is less irritating for the reader. A character who sits down at the family dinner table immediately snatches up his fork and starts stuffing roast potatoes into his mouth before anyone else has even managed to sit down has revealed a tendency towards greed or gluttony.

Understanding Character Traits

Again, there is room here for some fun and profitable prewriting activities. Give students a list of character traits and have them describe a character doing something that reveals that trait without ever employing the word itself.

It is also essential to avoid adjective stuffing here. When looking at students’ early drafts, adjective stuffing is often apparent. To train the student out of this habit, choose an adjective and have the student rewrite the sentence to express this adjective through action rather than telling.

When writing a story, it is vital to consider the character’s traits and how they will impact the story’s events. For example, a character with a strong trait of determination may be more likely to overcome obstacles and persevere. In contrast, a character with a tendency towards laziness may struggle to achieve their goals. In short, character traits add realism, depth, and meaning to a story, making it more engaging and memorable for the reader.

Popular Character Traits in Children’s Stories

Determination
Imagination
Perseverance
Responsibility

We have an in-depth guide to creating great characters here , but most students should be fine to move on to planning their conflict and resolution.

3. NO PROBLEM? NO STORY! HOW CONFLICT DRIVES A NARRATIVE

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This is often the area apprentice writers have the most difficulty with. Students must understand that without a problem or conflict, there is no story. The problem is the driving force of the action. Usually, in a short story, the problem will center around what the primary character wants to happen or, indeed, wants not to happen. It is the hurdle that must be overcome. It is in the struggle to overcome this hurdle that events happen.

Often when a student understands the need for a problem in a story, their completed work will still not be successful. This is because, often in life, problems remain unsolved. Hurdles are not always successfully overcome. Students pick up on this.

We often discuss problems with friends that will never be satisfactorily resolved one way or the other, and we accept this as a part of life. This is not usually the case with writing a story. Whether a character successfully overcomes his or her problem or is decidedly crushed in the process of trying is not as important as the fact that it will finally be resolved one way or the other.

A good practical exercise for students to get to grips with this is to provide copies of stories and have them identify the central problem or conflict in each through discussion. Familiar fables or fairy tales such as Three Little Pigs, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Cinderella, etc., are great for this.

While it is true that stories often have more than one problem or that the hero or heroine is unsuccessful in their first attempt to solve a central problem, for beginning students and intermediate students, it is best to focus on a single problem, especially given the scope of story writing at this level. Over time students will develop their abilities to handle more complex plots and write accordingly.

Popular Conflicts found in Children’s Storytelling.

Good vs evil
Individual vs society
Nature vs nurture
Self vs others
Man vs self
Man vs nature
Man vs technology
Individual vs fate
Self vs destiny

Conflict is the heart and soul of any good story. It’s what makes a story compelling and drives the plot forward. Without conflict, there is no story. Every great story has a struggle or a problem that needs to be solved, and that’s where conflict comes in. Conflict is what makes a story exciting and keeps the reader engaged. It creates tension and suspense and makes the reader care about the outcome.

Like in real life, conflict in a story is an opportunity for a character’s growth and transformation. It’s a chance for them to learn and evolve, making a story great. So next time stories are written in the classroom, remember that conflict is an essential ingredient, and without it, your story will lack the energy, excitement, and meaning that makes it truly memorable.

4. THE NARRATIVE CLIMAX: HOW THINGS COME TO A HEAD!

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The climax of the story is the dramatic high point of the action. It is also when the struggles kicked off by the problem come to a head. The climax will ultimately decide whether the story will have a happy or tragic ending. In the climax, two opposing forces duke things out until the bitter (or sweet!) end. One force ultimately emerges triumphant. As the action builds throughout the story, suspense increases as the reader wonders which of these forces will win out. The climax is the release of this suspense.

Much of the success of the climax depends on how well the other elements of the story have been achieved. If the student has created a well-drawn and believable character that the reader can identify with and feel for, then the climax will be more powerful.

The nature of the problem is also essential as it determines what’s at stake in the climax. The problem must matter dearly to the main character if it matters at all to the reader.

Have students engage in discussions about their favorite movies and books. Have them think about the storyline and decide the most exciting parts. What was at stake at these moments? What happened in your body as you read or watched? Did you breathe faster? Or grip the cushion hard? Did your heart rate increase, or did you start to sweat? This is what a good climax does and what our students should strive to do in their stories.

The climax puts it all on the line and rolls the dice. Let the chips fall where the writer may…

Popular Climax themes in Children’s Stories

A battle between good and evil
The character’s bravery saves the day
Character faces their fears and overcomes them
The character solves a mystery or puzzle.
The character stands up for what is right.
Character reaches their goal or dream.
The character learns a valuable lesson.
The character makes a selfless sacrifice.
The character makes a difficult decision.
The character reunites with loved ones or finds true friendship.

5. RESOLUTION: TYING UP LOOSE ENDS

After the climactic action, a few questions will often remain unresolved for the reader, even if all the conflict has been resolved. The resolution is where those lingering questions will be answered. The resolution in a short story may only be a brief paragraph or two. But, in most cases, it will still be necessary to include an ending immediately after the climax can feel too abrupt and leave the reader feeling unfulfilled.

An easy way to explain resolution to students struggling to grasp the concept is to point to the traditional resolution of fairy tales, the “And they all lived happily ever after” ending. This weather forecast for the future allows the reader to take their leave. Have the student consider the emotions they want to leave the reader with when crafting their resolution.

While the action is usually complete by the end of the climax, it is in the resolution that if there is a twist to be found, it will appear – think of movies such as The Usual Suspects. Pulling this off convincingly usually requires considerable skill from a student writer. Still, it may well form a challenging extension exercise for those more gifted storytellers among your students.

Popular Resolutions in Children’s Stories

Our hero achieves their goal
The character learns a valuable lesson
A character finds happiness or inner peace.
The character reunites with loved ones.
Character restores balance to the world.
The character discovers their true identity.
Character changes for the better.
The character gains wisdom or understanding.
Character makes amends with others.
The character learns to appreciate what they have.

Once students have completed their story, they can edit for grammar, vocabulary choice, spelling, etc., but not before!

As mentioned, there is a craft to storytelling, as well as an art. When accurate grammar, perfect spelling, and immaculate sentence structures are pushed at the outset, they can cause storytelling paralysis. For this reason, it is essential that when we encourage the students to write a story, we give them license to make mechanical mistakes in their use of language that they can work on and fix later.

Good narrative writing is a very complex skill to develop and will take the student years to become competent. It challenges not only the student’s technical abilities with language but also her creative faculties. Writing frames, word banks, mind maps, and visual prompts can all give valuable support as students develop the wide-ranging and challenging skills required to produce a successful narrative writing piece. But, at the end of it all, as with any craft, practice and more practice is at the heart of the matter.

TIPS FOR WRITING A GREAT NARRATIVE

Start your story with a clear purpose: If you can determine the theme or message you want to convey in your narrative before starting it will make the writing process so much simpler.
Choose a compelling storyline and sell it through great characters, setting and plot: Consider a unique or interesting story that captures the reader’s attention, then build the world and characters around it.
Develop vivid characters that are not all the same: Make your characters relatable and memorable by giving them distinct personalities and traits you can draw upon in the plot.
Use descriptive language to hook your audience into your story: Use sensory language to paint vivid images and sequences in the reader’s mind.
Show, don’t tell your audience: Use actions, thoughts, and dialogue to reveal character motivations and emotions through storytelling.
Create a vivid setting that is clear to your audience before getting too far into the plot: Describe the time and place of your story to immerse the reader fully.
Build tension: Refer to the story map earlier in this article and use conflict, obstacles, and suspense to keep the audience engaged and invested in your narrative.
Use figurative language such as metaphors, similes, and other literary devices to add depth and meaning to your narrative.
Edit, revise, and refine: Take the time to refine and polish your writing for clarity and impact.
Stay true to your voice: Maintain your unique perspective and style in your writing to make it your own.

NARRATIVE WRITING EXAMPLES (Student Writing Samples)

Below are a collection of student writing samples of narratives. Click on the image to enlarge and explore them in greater detail. Please take a moment to read these creative stories in detail and the teacher and student guides which highlight some of the critical elements of narratives to consider before writing.

Please understand these student writing samples are not intended to be perfect examples for each age or grade level but a piece of writing for students and teachers to explore together to critically analyze to improve student writing skills and deepen their understanding of story writing.

We recommend reading the example either a year above or below, as well as the grade you are currently working with, to gain a broader appreciation of this text type.

narrative writing | Narrative writing example year 3 1 | Narrative Writing: A Complete Guide for Teachers and Students | literacyideas.com

NARRATIVE WRITING PROMPTS (Journal Prompts)

When students have a great journal prompt, it can help them focus on the task at hand, so be sure to view our vast collection of visual writing prompts for various text types here or use some of these.

On a recent European trip, you find your travel group booked into the stunning and mysterious Castle Frankenfurter for a single night… As night falls, the massive castle of over one hundred rooms seems to creak and groan as a series of unexplained events begin to make you wonder who or what else is spending the evening with you. Write a narrative that tells the story of your evening.
You are a famous adventurer who has discovered new lands; keep a travel log over a period of time in which you encounter new and exciting adventures and challenges to overcome. Ensure your travel journal tells a story and has a definite introduction, conflict and resolution.
You create an incredible piece of technology that has the capacity to change the world. As you sit back and marvel at your innovation and the endless possibilities ahead of you, it becomes apparent there are a few problems you didn’t really consider. You might not even be able to control them. Write a narrative in which you ride the highs and lows of your world-changing creation with a clear introduction, conflict and resolution.
As the final door shuts on the Megamall, you realise you have done it… You and your best friend have managed to sneak into the largest shopping centre in town and have the entire place to yourselves until 7 am tomorrow. There is literally everything and anything a child would dream of entertaining themselves for the next 12 hours. What amazing adventures await you? What might go wrong? And how will you get out of there scot-free?
A stranger walks into town… Whilst appearing similar to almost all those around you, you get a sense that this person is from another time, space or dimension… Are they friends or foes? What makes you sense something very strange is going on? Suddenly they stand up and walk toward you with purpose extending their hand… It’s almost as if they were reading your mind.

NARRATIVE WRITING VIDEO TUTORIAL

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Teaching Resources

Use our resources and tools to improve your student’s writing skills through proven teaching strategies.

When teaching narrative writing, it is essential that you have a range of tools, strategies and resources at your disposal to ensure you get the most out of your writing time. You can find some examples below, which are free and paid premium resources you can use instantly without any preparation.

FREE Narrative Graphic Organizer

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THE STORY TELLERS BUNDLE OF TEACHING RESOURCES

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A MASSIVE COLLECTION of resources for narratives and story writing in the classroom covering all elements of crafting amazing stories. MONTHS WORTH OF WRITING LESSONS AND RESOURCES, including:

NARRATIVE WRITING CHECKLIST BUNDLE

Narrative Writing for Kids: Essential Skills and Strategies

7 Great Narrative Lesson Plans Students and Teachers Love

Top 7 Narrative Writing Exercises for Students

How to Write a Scary Story

Writing Center

Strategic enrollment management and student success, breaking the blank page: personal narrative guide, remember....

Narrative Writing is unique in that no two professors teach it the same way. Because of this, the specifics of this type of writing will vary. The information in this guide is meant to help you approach personal narrative in a general way, but always refer to your professor’s assignment sheet and ask them if you have any questions.

What is Narrative Writing?

A narrative is a piece of writing that tells some sort of story . This writing often will be reflective and/or experiential in nature. You will serve as the narrator, the person who tells the story, in order to talk about an experience that you’ve had. You may then be asked to reflect on that experience to explore the effect it had on you and others.

Why is this project assigned?

Some VCU classes, like Focused Inquiry, use a shared curriculum that focuses on specific educational goals, including improving your writing process. The following are the skills around which the curriculum is centered:

Communicative Fluency
Ethical Reasoning
Problem Solving (Critical and Creative)
Information Literacy
Global and Cultural Awareness and Responsiveness

A personal narrative project will strengthen several of the above skills as you craft a narrative using your own experiences, draw meaning from those experiences, organize your thoughts about a particular topic, and evaluate situations in which you’ve been involved.

A narrative assignment is likely your first piece of major writing of the semester. Often, it’s not only a graded assignment, but also an introduction to your professor, both of yourself and of your written work.

Choosing a Subject

Ideally, the narrative you write will be both compelling and important to read. Why does what you’re writing about matter?

You may be invited or asked to share part or all of your narrative with others-- for example, in a one-on-one peer review session or a presentation. Keep this in mind if sharing personal or potentially sensitive information with someone other than your professor, such as other students, concerns you.

Techniques of Narrative Storytelling

Sequencing. Make sure your story is told in order (with a beginning, middle, and end), and that any background information needed to understand the story is told first. Who are your characters and what are their names? How are they related to you? Where is the story taking place? When? How old were you?

Dialogue. Something like, "Marie was really mad and yelled at me" sounds a lot better if you flesh out the moment with dialogue:

Marie turned completely red and started to shake. “Why would you do that?” she yelled.

Semantics. Consider the meaning of the words you use. A good rule of thumb is to be as specific as possible with your descriptions. You can use a thesaurus to find more exact words-- for instance, rather than saying someone “went” somewhere, you can describe how they went-- did they walk, jog, run, limp, scurry?

Sensory details. Sensory details provide information about the event that comes from the senses, including smells, sounds, colors, expressions, and even feelings. Vivid details help bring the reader into the moment you’re describing. “We got in the car” has quite a different feel than, for instance, “We climbed into the rust-red, oil-stained Toyota Camry”.

Unless your professor has clearly stated that you should not use the personal “I” in your writing, you are free to do so!
There is no required structure unless your professor asks for one. You don’t have to write a certain number of paragraphs or follow any rules about the number of sentences that each paragraph has.
A personal narrative, unless required by your professor, does not need to be researched (you shouldn’t have to cite any sources or look anything up online).
After you finish drafting your narrative, it may help to read out loud to catch anything you might have missed.
Are you a planner or a doer? Some students learn better by writing everything out all at once, while others prefer planning their paper out extensively before they actually start to write. There is no real “correct” way to plan a paper.

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How to teach personal narrative writing to students in a creative way.

Teaching writing is hard. It’s hard because you have to find a way to show and encourage students to move past the surface level. Kids tend to be very cut-and-dry or all over the place in their writing, so you may struggle with teaching them how to add more relevant details to their personal narrative writing .

It’s natural since they lack the personal experiences we’ve had. We just have to model and practice until they get the hang of it. I like to think that narrative writing is the easiest type of writing for students to grasp.

Children with vivid imaginations just HAVE to tell us all of the things that happen throughout their day, even the ones they should probably keep to themselves.

My goal is to share effective strategies for how to teach personal narrative writing to your students in a structured and useful way.

Here’s a look at how we use our Write On program to teach narrative writing to kids.

Modeling Personal Narrative Writing

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Before you begin your lesson, show students what narrative writing looks like. The best way to model is using a mentor text.

Using the mentor text, you’ll share stories that model the way personal narratives should flow. You will want to pay special attention to how the writer goes into detail about events.

Another useful way to model is to create a narrative as a class. You can talk with your students about a particular event that has happened in the school year whether big or small and show them how to elaborate.

It’s especially important to help students understand that even small events can be written about in detail.

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The first step to any form of writing is brainstorming. For personal narrative writing, it’s the perfect time for students to go through all of those little ideas in their heads.

In our Write On program for personal narrative writing , we chose to have students write about a time they were sick. During the brainstorming phase, students can begin to think about the many times they were sick or hurt.

We use a personal narrative writing anchor chart to help jot down their ideas as a class. And something tells me you won’t have any issues with your students generating ideas! To stay on theme, we use little band-aids for our charts

During the first day, brainstorming a plethora of ideas is the only thing students should focus on.

Show Not Tell for Writing Details

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The most difficult phase in the narrative writing process is getting students to write in detail. It’s not enough to say “I am sad.” We have to show through our writing what that sadness looks like.

To begin, use writing posters that model what writing in detail looks like. Go over them with the students and show them how the sentences are different and why the sentences with more detail are better.

The next step is to work as a class on adding adjectives to sentences. You can use the small events that were documented during the anchor chart class discussion from the previous day to practice detailed sentences.

Here’s an example using our prompt for writing about a time you were sick or hurt.

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In this case, students are going into details about what their sadness looked like. This is one of the most crucial steps in personal narrative writing and can be difficult to teach.

The best thing you can do is model, model, model.

Personal Narrative Writing Story Sequence

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Going into detail gets heavy, so the next thing we will want to do is take a step back from the details and start to think about how the story should be organized.

This is where our narrative graphic organizers come into play. But first, consider modeling how to order events using a sequence anchor chart .

You have to guide your students in focusing on one specific moment. In our Write On unit , we ask students to go back to their brainstorming sheets and pick one small event from the list of times they were hurt or sick.

Now, we will begin to introduce transition words. We like to start with easy transitions using first, next, then, and last. These transition words are easy for students to grasp and help to set the tone for how to think about their narratives in terms of a sequence of events.

Students will use their narrative graphic organizers to discuss what happened leading up to the event, the specific event, and the aftermath.

Editing with a Game

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Editing is a tedious part of the writing phase that is often met with resistance. Students have to skim down their writing to make it less fluffy or they may need to add new words for more variety in their text.

One way to assist students with this process is to begin introducing new words and having students think about how they can add them to their writing as they edit.

Rather than have students go straight into editing their work, try an editing game ! During our writing on describing a time students were hurt, we play a game of operation to teach students how to use reflexive pronouns.

You could do something similar for other word classes you may need to go over with your students.

Here’s how you can play the game.

Grab word cards with reflexive pronouns and cut them apart. You can place them in a bowl of Hot Tamales (to resemble organs), and give them to groups (or have students prep this as a group).
Have your students place category labels on their desks and they can take turns using tweezers to carefully choose a card.
Once they have a word, students sort the word into the correct category or students can use a recording sheet to sort their words.
You can also do this just as a sort without the candy and tweezers. Give students the words to cut apart and sort into groups.
After practicing and learning about reflexive pronouns, students can work together to edit their work and add in any words they learn. Ensuring it’s done correctly.

Focused Editing with Highlighters

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After adding words and making their writing better, students can move on to the final editing phase. In the final phase, students will look for specific areas of focus including capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.

After reading through their writing, you can have your students use highlighters to highlight areas that need to be fixed. Use varying colors as keys for each area they are focusing on.

For example, use blue for capitalization, pink for punctuation, and yellow for spelling.

Students will read through their writing and check for capital letters and highlight capitals or where capitals should be blue.

Then, they do the same thing with punctuation and a pink highlighter/marker/crayon.

The last thing they will check for is spelling. If they are unsure of the spelling of a word, students highlight that word yellow so they can check the spelling and correct it for their final piece.

Publish a Personal Narrative Writing

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Next comes publishing day! Before students go through their edits and rewrite their final piece, you should help model how it works first.

Grab your rubric and the rough draft you created to model writing at the beginning of the lesson. Go through the piece step by step showing the students how to correct the errors they’ve identified.

Reinforce the goal to your students: To write the published piece error-free!

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In the end, students will go over their work, edit, and publish their final piece. Sticking with the “Ouch” theme, have students craft a patient file and doctor image to hold their writing.

Then, they can share their favorite part with the class!

Check out these Writing Lessons for Personal Narratives !

Don’t forget these tips for how to teach narrative writing, just save the image below for later!

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2nd Grade Personal Narratives Writing Unit

Have you been wondering how to teach 2nd graders to write a personal narrative? It can feel overwhelming if your school doesn’t provide a writing curriculum (or worse, it’s an awful one). You might find yourself frantically googling ‘how do you teach a personal narrative to 2nd grade?!’ Well, don’t worry! I’ve got you covered. I’m going to share all about my 2nd grade personal narratives writing unit!

2nd grade writing curriculum - second grade writing unit - personal narratives unit

What’s included in this 2nd grade personal narratives writing unit?

Unit documents.

First up, you’re provided with everything you need to organize your lesson planning –

List of common core standards that align with the unit
Suggestions for differentiation
Suggested lesson times (no matter how long your writing block is)
Unit scope and at-a-glance calendar
Lesson materials list (so you know exactly what is needed for each lesson at a glance)
Video overview to help organize and implement the unit
Hyperlinked table of contents (so you can jump straight to the pages you need)!

terrific writing curriculum second grade writing unit personal narratives

Personal narrative 2nd grade Lesson plans

Next, there are 25 step-by-step lesson plans. These one page scripted plans are easy to grab and teach!

This is NOT one of those big box curriculums where you have to sift through 10 pages of background teacher information for each lesson or read from the most BORING script. I hear so many teachers say that those curriculums are “Not teacher friendly, wordy and annoying to follow. SO many pages to read for just one lesson! “

Conversely, the lessons in this unit follow a simple format of mini lesson, think and share, and independent writing time. There’s a short script and differentiation is included for the writing tasks. You can stop spending hours of your precious time on evenings and weekends writing lesson plans from scratch or reading those awful ones I mentioned earlier!

2nd grade personal narratives lesson plan

Personal narrative writing posters

As you’re teaching, there’s nothing worse than just talking AT students and having them zone out and look elsewhere. That’s why this 2nd grade personal narratives writing unit includes 21 engaging posters to display as you teach!

personal narrative anchor charts grade 2 posters writing unit elements of a personal narrative

You can refer to the posters as you teach or revise certain concepts. There are definitions, explanations, and examples for everything covered in the unit!

What if you don’t fancy printing and laminating? It’s okay, you can just show the PDF on your interactive whiteboard!

There are so many topics covered. For example, you’ll find a parts of a paragraph poster, structure of a personal narrative poster, and editing checklist poster.

personal narrative writing posters 2nd grade anchor charts parts of a narrative poster

Mentor texts

You’re busy, right? I bet the last thing you want to do is source mentor texts. Whether you hit up Amazon or your school library, either way it takes time and/or money.

Well, this writing unit includes six original mentor texts! They are engaging and help show students a personal narrative example. They’ll see what their writing needs to be like!

The mentor texts align well with the lessons (for example, a mentor text about a beach day is read during a lesson where students write about a fun day).

Every mentor text has examples of the concepts and features of a narrative that are taught in this unit (for example, all the mentor texts have hooks, linking words etc).

Wanna save on printing? Just the like posters, you can show the mentor texts as a PDF. Even better, there are PowerPoint versions too!

second grade personal narrative example 2nd grade mentor texts sample

Click here to grab the unit from this website you’re on right now. Use the code TERRIFIC10 at checkout to save 10%!

Personal narrative writing prompts, graphic organizers, and worksheets

Once you’re finished the mini lesson, it’s time for students to write! This unit includes –

17 personal narrative graphic organizers / worksheets
1 writing prompt pre-assessment
8 lined pages (for first drafts and crafts)
2 checklists

I hear many teachers say that the big box curriculum that they are provided with is so boring for students. That’s why I made sure that this unit has ENGAGING student activities!

personal narrative writing prompt second grade

These worksheets have been designed to cater to a range of students. Five of the activities have lines for writing and they are offered in both dotted and plain lines.

However, the rest of the printables are graphic organizers and have boxes for students to share their answers. You may have some students working well below their grade level. In this case, they can draw pictures and write words/short sentences for their responses (without the stigma of needing a different printable). Students working at or above grade level can write lengthy answers to fill the boxes.

The boxes allow students to share their answers easily, no matter the size of their handwriting!

teaching characterization setting personal narratives worksheet

I hear many teachers complain that the curriculum they’re given is “too open ended and vague” and “too difficult for the kids”

Or worse, that “it never covered the basics, not enough solid instruction. It expects students to just sit and write for long stretches”

In this unit, students are NOT told to just ‘go off and write’ as if that will magically make them good writers! In this unit, each concept is explicitly taught and students learn all about the structure and features of a personal narrative. They use the printables to work on what they have learned.

hook worksheet show, don't tell activity 2nd grade

how to make teaching writing more fun

These activities have been designed to be engaging for students! There’s fun clip art and boxes. Students get the opportunity to draw illustrations and color in.

In this writing unit, your students will develop a love of writing. The graphic organizers, interactive notebooks, and final craft will engage students much more than a blank piece of paper!

Wanna save on printing? You can display the activities instead. You could print one copy (perhaps in a large size) and display in your classroom. If you don’t have the ability to print at all, you could share these activities digitally (on an interactive whiteboard, TV, projector, computer, or laptop).

In both of these scenarios, students can recreate the activity on plain paper, lined paper, or in their notebooks/workbooks and write their responses. They could even type their answers digitally.

Fun fact, the pictures in this post are included in the writing unit so that you and/or your students can see examples of the activities!

Interactive notebooks

Hands-on is always best! That’s why this unit includes three interactive notebooks. Students can share their ideas in a fun and interactive way. Two of them are brainstorming activities. One is a beginning, middle, and end activity for teaching the structure of a personal narrative.

personal narrative interactive notebook 2nd grade

EDITING CHECKLISTS

How do you revise or edit a personal narrative?

Once students write a draft of their final writing piece, there are two checklists to help them edit and revise their work! Students complete self, peer, and adult edits.

editing checklist revising personal narratives 2nds grade

Writing folder

Where will your students store all of their work? There’s a workbook cover provided in this unit that comes in boy and girl versions! You can also choose between the wording ‘folder, journal, or notebook’.

Interested in the unit? Click here to grab it from TPT!

Personal narrative writing craft

The unit ends with an exciting writing craft!

Students are writing a personal narrative on lined paper, but that’s where it ends in most boring writing units. But not this unit! Instead, students get an opportunity to be creative and make something hands-on after the writing part!

personal narrative writing craft - how to teach personal narratives second grade

I’ve never understood why some people are against crafts. If they are messy or not educational, I get it. But in this case, your students are just getting to ENJOY writing a narrative with something a little artsy as a reward after their hard work. It’s perfect for parent teacher night or sending home with students! It’s something for students to be proud of!

The craft comes in four versions (boys, girls etc) and there’s even a tutorial video for you and/or your students to watch, so that you know how to make it.

The craft asks students to write about a happy memory that they have chosen! After all, students love to write about things that they are interested in.

2nd grade writing curriculum grade 2 unit homeschool activities

Publishing party

Time to celebrate! After creating the craft and final writing piece, students get to share their work with their peers.

This is where you get to whip out the certificates and compliment notes so that students can cheer each other on!

It’s so important to celebrate your students’ hard work. The compliment notes and certificates come in black and white versions too.

writing certificate publishing party grade 2 writing unit

early finishers

There’s always a few high flyers who finish early. Instead of having them read a book or whatever, why not make sure that they are still learning and practicing their writing skills?

In this unit, there are 24 task cards (in color and black and white) where students can write in response to a personal narrative writing prompt.

early finishers fast finishers 2nd grade writing lesson personal narrative task cards writing prompts

Narrative Writing assessment rubric

It’s important to assess your students’ writing and that’s why an assessment rubric is included in this unit.

But there’s nothing worse than grading on a rubric that you can’t make sense of. So, I made sure to include examples and elaborations to help you understand the rubric. There’s even a video!

personal narratives writing rubric 2nd grade assessment grading

What lessons are taught in the unit?

Here’s a look at the lessons:

What is a personal narrative?
What is a good sentence?
Brainstorming ideas
Narrowing down ideas
The structure of a narrative
What will my narrative be about?
Creating characters
Describing a setting
Writing a problem or event
Creating a solution
Writing a narrative
Linking words
Sentence stretching
Show, don’t tell
Start with a hook
Actions, thoughts, and feelings
Writing a paragraph
Writing an ending
The brainstorm
Planning a narrative
The first draft
Time to revise
Time to edit
The final draft

Are you short on time?

This 5 week unit has EVERYTHING you need, because let’s be honest, teachers are time poor.

Let’s get your evenings and weekends back, my friend! Take a break from lesson planning and searching for engaging materials. It’s all right here.

This unit comes from Terrific Writing. It’s a curriculum that is standards based (to the common core) and genre based.

Are you struggling to teach writing? Do your students hate writing lessons?

Does your school not provide you with a writing curriculum? Or worse, is it awful?

What if there was a way for your writing lessons to be engaging for students and enjoyable for you to teach?

Check out unit 1 of Terrific Writing today! Click here to grab it on Teachers Pay Teachers.

terrific writing curriculum second grade personal narratives writing unit

Wanna save 10%?

Click here to grab the unit from this website you’re on right now. Use the code TERRIFIC10 at checkout!

P.S. – Interested in free crafts and worksheets? Access my free resource library here!

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July 11, 2020

Kindergarten Writing: Personal Narrative

Teaching writing in kindergarten can be one of the most challenging aspects of teaching. In fact, this is the biggest struggle for many teachers in my private Facebook group. While we are talking about this struggle, let’s be honest: not all kids love to write. In like manner, children can struggle too! This is exactly why I have created the Kindergarten Writing Bundle! This easy to use curriculum has EVERYTHING you need to make writing successful in your classroom or homeschool! Simply put, my desire is for kids to learn to LOVE writing because they feel successful at it!

Fortunately, I think this curriculum hits the spot! I am SO excited to share this Kindergarten Writing Curriculum with you!

Kindergarten Writing Curriculum Scope:

There are a total of 7 units included in this comprehensive writing curriculum:

Unit 1: Personal Narrative: Sharing My Story
Unit 2: Non-Realistic Fiction: Using our Imagination
Unit 3: Writing to Teach and Inform: How-to-Books
Unit 4: Poetry: Exploring Poetry
Unit 5: Realistic-Fiction: Writing Interesting Stories
Unit 6: Opinion and Persuasive Writing: Changing the World
Unit 7: Non-Fiction Chapter Books: Creating a Chapter Book

Let’s take a look at Unit 1 in the Kindergarten Writing Curriculum!

Teaching writing in Kindergarten can be one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences! They change and grow so much, even in the first weeks of school! Before you know it, you will see your students begin to blossom and grow as writers!

This Kindergarten Writing Curriculum uses a Writers Workshop type model. This means that there will be a mini-lesson, status updates (pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, evaluating, or publishing), writing, and sharing! Don’t worry… I have you covered on how to effectively implement this curriculum in your classroom!

So when do you start teaching writing in Kindergarten? Good question! Right away! You can get this curriculum up and running during the first or second week of school! Luckily, you don’t need to wait until students know a certain number or sight words or letters. During Unit 1, we are not expecting them to write sentences….yet! Instead, in Unit 1 we will help students understand that their drawings/illustrations tell a story. Consider all of the wordless picture books you have “read.” You can certainly understand the storyline in those books. Allowing students to draw pictures and orally tell their story will show them that they too are authors!

*Side note: If you are looking for fun ways to teach the alphabet, click here . For fun phonics activities, click here .

What is Included In Unit 1: Personal Narrative?

22 Detailed Lesson Plans
Suggested Schedule for (60, 45, and 30 minute blocks)
Tips for Getting Started
Curriculum Scope and Unit Scopes
Developmental Writing Stages Chart
Mentor Text Guides
Conferencing Guides, Planners, and Trackers
Assessments Guides
Writing Templates
Publishing Party Guide and Templates
Writing Posters
Personal Word Wall
Writer’s Checklist
Personal Narrative Writing Idea Charts
The Writing Process Poster
Young Author Award Certificate

Let’s start with the Lesson Plans!

These easy-to-follow lesson plans set you up for success. They are broken up into 6 simple parts:

Focus- The skill, strategy, or idea students will be focusing on this lesson.

Warm Up- A quick activity that has students review and practice previous skills.

Mini Lesson- Teach, model, and discuss the new skill in today’s lesson.

Practice- The hands-on portion of the lesson where students apply what they have learned in the mini lesson to their own writing. During this time you will conference individually with students.

Mid-Practice Teaching Point- A quick reminder and chance to highlight the great work students are doing.

Share- Lesson wrap up where students analyze, reflect on, and share their work.

I have also laid out what a lesson might look like with a 60 minute , 45 minute , and 30 minute time block . We all have different schedules, and this writing curriculum is designed to meet your needs! Do what works best for YOU!

Also included are some tips for getting started! With this cohesive curriculum, I have set you up for success! All the work has been done for you. Just print out your materials and open up your lesson plans! Of course you will want to monitor students progress, and change your plans appropriately.

Here are a few things that will help you, your students, and your classroom be ready to implement a Writers Workshop model.

Things to keep on-hand:

Teacher Materials- You will need a teacher copy of each template for modeling. You may find it helpful to use a document camera or recreate the templates on chart paper so students can easily see them. Many teachers find that putting their example away at the start of work time reduces the likelihood of students copying your work.

Writing Process Poster- This poster helps students learn the steps of the writing process and track what the class is currently working on.

Use Velcro, tape, or a clothes pin to attach the marker to the laminated poster so it can easily be moved.

Word Wall- A wall and/or personal list that students use to help them spell sight words.

Alphabet Chart- A wall chart and/or personal list that students use to help them identify and shape letters. As students start learning digraphs and other special sound combinations it can be helpful to add these.

Writing Materials- Providing students with extra pencils or creating an independent system for them to get a new pencil when necessary will reduce interruptions.

Writing Folder- During the writing process students will have several drafts and templates. A dedicated writing folder can be helpful for organizing these materials. I’ve included a cover that you can personalize to add to the front of each writing folder.

Kindergarten Personal Narrative: Unit 1 Scope:

22 detailed lesson plans that will walk you through how to teach a personal narrative! By the end of the unit, your students will have written 3 personal narratives, and will be ready to move onto Unit 2!

In order to make your writing block effective, be sure to implement procedures and plan out your routines and expectations. Get your materials set up and provide students with a writing folder. Be sure to model, model, model!

Organization:

Each child will get his/her own writing folder. This folder will be the place where they keep all of their writing templates, charts, and materials.

Inside of each folder, you can include the Alphabet Sound Chart, the Letter Chart, Letter Formation Chart and any other resources about the unit.

Included in the files are pencil labels…

Mentor Texts:

Mentor texts are an important component to each unit in the Writing Curriculum. What are Mentor Texts? Mentor text(s) are 1-2 example texts that illustrate the writing style we are focusing on for the unit.

For the Kindergarten Personal Narrative, here are some examples of mentor texts you can use:

“Fireflies” by Julie Brinckloe
“Kitchen Dance” by MaurieJ. Manning
“Shortcut” by Donald Crews
“Hello Ocean” by Pam Munoz and Mark Astrella
“New Shoes” by Chris Raschka
“The Leaving Morning” by Angela Johnson

In Lesson 1 , we introduce mentor texts. Discussion- Who is the main character? What happened to them first? Then what happened? What happened at the end? What makes this story interesting to read? Would this story be as interesting without the pictures? Why?

The mentor texts will be part of your Writers Library.

Writers Library

A Writers Library is a larger collection of on-topic texts that students can read and reference throughout the unit. Consider keeping these books in a special location where students can access them throughout the unit.

“Ralph Tells a Story” by Abby Hanlon is a great way to introduce students to the idea of being a writer. This is a story about a boy named Ralph who thinks he can’t write a story. Consider using it in Lesson 2 to help students start brainstorming ideas of things they can write about.

Planning Stage:

During Lesson 2 , students will start planning their narratives. They will complete fill in their own heart with things they like to do, places they like to go, and people they like to spend time with! Students will use these hearts to help plan their writing.

Students will be reminded that they are focusing on a “small moment.” Maybe they went camping, but we don’t want them to tell about their entire camping experience. Rather, we want them to focus on a “small moment.” Maybe they tell about the fish they caught in the stream.

Posters help students understand what a personal narrative is and that their narratives will have a beginning, middle, and end.

Students learn that personal narratives include words like I, me, my and mine.

Their personal narrative will include detailed pictures.

Students will also have access to Personal Narrative Writing Idea posters , if you choose to use them.

A Writer’s Checklist can be used during small groups to help students edit their writing once they get to that stage.

The Writing Process poster will help keep students on track as you move from lesson to lesson. This will highlight where they are in the writing process and what is coming next.

The unit includes templates to get students started by mapping out their personal narrative with pictures.

Choose the template of your choice from the Level A Writing Templates.

Developmental Stages of Writing appropriate for Kindergarten:

While all students develop differently, most student writing progresses along these developmental writing stages. Therefore, use this chart to determine a student’s current writing level and identify next steps and goals. Keep in mind, it is normal for students to progress through some stages quickly and linger at others.

Pre-Writing Stage:
Random Scribbling
Linear Scribbling. Scribbling moves from left to right
Letter-like Symbols
Random Letters. Letters do not correspond to sounds.
Beginning Writing Stage:
Letter Strings- child can “read” writing.
Letter Groups
Labeling Pictures
Copying Print (Writer can’t read their writing.
Sound Writing:
Beginning Sounds
Beginning and Ending Sounds
Medial Sounds
Fluent Writing
Phrase Writing
Mixed Sound and Recall Spelling
Sentence Writing
All Syllables are Represented
Paragraph Writing

Conferencing:

Conference is the heart of Writer’s Workshop! This is where you will work with your small groups and get a good feel of where they are in their writing. Certainly keep in mind that you’re conferring with them. It’s an opportunity to provide individualized instruction, assess students writing, reinforce skills taught during the mini-lessons.

Highlighting Strengths

When you confer with your students, you can identify their strengths and notice what they are doing well. Specifically, these moments are great opportunities to celebrate those moments and help build self-confidence. As a result, students’ writing stamina grows as students learn what they are doing correctly.

Improving Weaknesses

Conferencing also gives the chance for students to think about where they can improve their writing. Certainly you can easily make this your teaching point. You may want to pose questions during this time. For example, what else do good writers do? Suggestions could include adding more details. Or they might need to make sure their writing has a beginning, middle and end. Perhaps the student is working on labeling. Whatever the case, conferencing time is a time to set goals for something they can work on to improve their writing so they can become even better writers.

Scaffolding

In light of the vigorous process, I have included Wordless Picture Books to help make this process more effective! Use the Wordless Picture Books to address specific writing goals with students. Some may be working on labeling. Some might work on detailed pictures. By the end of the year, you will see students progress in the Developmental Stages of Writing and move onto write sentences and even paragraphs.

Laminate the Wordless Picture Books and use them model what good writing looks like while meeting with your small groups.

There are blank lines to write a beginning,

and end to your story.

As students progress through their personal narratives, they will continue to grow as writers. Therefore, it is an exciting process to watch! In the example below, students can use the circles at the bottom of the page to show green for beginning, yellow for middle, and red for the end. Alternatively you can have students number their pages 1, 2, and 3.

Remember, some students will just draw pictures, some might label their pictures, and some will attempt to “write” words or sentences. First and foremost, let the creativity flow. Consequently, you will be able to watch your writers blossom and fall in LOVE with writing!

Celebrate your students successes as you continue to build writing stamina!

Rubrics provide a structured way to measure student writing ability. Use these rubrics to grade pre-unit on demands, post-unit on demands, and final writing pieces as needed. Most teachers find that grading all three writing pieces is not necessary.

Conveniently, there are several options of rubrics provided so you can select the rubric(s) that best fits your needs.

Publishing Party :

Now it’s time for students to share their writing in Lesson 22 ! This is such an important component to Writer’s Workshop, especially in Kindergarten! Finally, it’s time to have a Publishing Party! Students have worked hard to complete 3 personal narratives! It’s time to celebrate their accomplishments!

Publishing parties look different in each room. The main thing is that each student gets a chance to share their work! For a small class you could have students share one at a time. On the other hand, for a larger class you could have students share in small groups or sit at their desks while guests rotate around and see all of the books.

Plan Ahead:

Mark your publishing party on your class calendar at the beginning of the unit to help your students get excited. Additionally, during revision and publishing days remind your students that they are authors and an audience is coming to hear their stories!

The main goal of a publishing party is for students to celebrate and share their accomplishments as a writer . A variety of party supplies and props are provided including crowns, compliment pages, signs, party invitations, an “I’m an Author” banner and name tags. Use these to make your party something your students and families look forward to each unit. Let’s get this party started!

For your convenience, you can use the included invitations to invite family, friends, or another class to come hear your student’s stories.

I hope this post was helpful to you as you set out to implement kindergarten writing workshop this year!

Be sure to join my private Facebook group with other likeminded educators and homeschool families that are using Moffatt Girl Curriculum!

Happy Teaching!

Reader Interactions

February 8, 2023 at 4:07 pm

I. Am intereses on the kindergarten currículum, where caI get It.

February 16, 2023 at 6:06 pm

Hi Karina, here’s the link to the Kindergarten Writing Curriculum: Click Here .

Kindly, Annie

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Narrative Writing – Personal Narratives

Our Narrative Writing – Personal Narratives lesson plan introduces students to writing personal narratives. Students walk through each step taught in this lesson in order to write their own personal narratives.

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Additional information.

Our Narrative Writing – Personal Narratives lesson plan introduces students to writing personal narratives. The lesson provides instruction and suggestions to help students think of ideas and add details to their own stories. Beginning with this sort of writing allows students to make a personal connection with the assignment, which will allow them to develop their personal style and voice. Students are asked to use their creativity to develop and write a personal narrative story from start to finish.

At the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify the elements to create a strong personal narrative. Students will have moved through the steps of brainstorming, rough draft, editing, and final draft to create a personal narrative.

Thank you for submitting a review!

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I love all the resources for my 6th grade ELA class.

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Narrative Writing Part 1

Very nice lesson - this was easy for the children to understand and build on each day. Thank you!

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Writing Personal Narratives in 1st Grade: A Week of Lessons!

Susan Jones March 24, 2020 9 Comments

This post may contain affiliate ads at no cost to you. See my disclosures for more information.

Do you need any help teaching personal narratives to your kindergarten, first grade or second-grade students?!

While many parents and teachers are embarking on this new adventure of E-learning or learning from home, I wanted to help out in a way that will provide some relief to both busy teachers and busy parents.

To do this, I decided to create a quick YouTube mini-series titled, “ Learn at Home with Mrs. Jones .”

Within this series, I am releasing videos that are meant to instruct K-2 students. I offer a mini-lesson in each video and share a read aloud, math activity, or writing lesson. Today, I wanted to talk about the writing lessons I filmed.

Writing Personal Narratives: 5 part mini-series

Within this 5 video playlist , I included a video for brainstorming, planning, adding illustrations, adding words, adding the details, editing, and publishing! We essentially walk through the entire writing process in a simple, easy-to-follow format.

These videos and lessons were made for teachers to be able to send home directly to their K-2 students and parents to complete the steps on their own time!

Here is a peek at each video:

In this first video, I walk students through how to brainstorm some different topics for a personal narrative, narrow down on one, and plan out their narrative with the strategy “Say & Sketch.”

The second video is all about the illustrations. We take our “Say & Sketch” sheet and stretch our illustrations across 3 pages. We also add some transition words.

After we stretch our illustrations, it is time to add some words to our writing! I share a simple strategy I use to get students’ ideas out of their brains and onto some paper.

Now, we need to add some details. In video 4, I share a couple of different ways to add more information to our stories and make them more interesting!

Lastly, we must edit and publish! I walk students through an editing checklist and have them create a cover page for their story before they go ahead and read their story to others!

You can either click on each video individually or you can see the whole playlist in order here:

WRITING PERSONAL NARRATIVES: VIDEO LESSONS

Pin to save for later:

Teach your first grade students how to write personal narratives with these 5 easy steps. There are 5 video lessons directed towards students with modeled strategies to get your students working through the writing process from brainstorming through publishing.

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Reader Interactions

March 31, 2020 at 1:47 pm

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! You are saving my life right now with your writing lesson that extends 5 days. It has been a great help guiding me to make my own video. I know you are swamped but if you want a request can you please make more of these for guidance during these hard times teaching distance learning. We are moving into fiction writing soon.

Thanks for your guidance and sharing your talent!! Lisa Schovajsa

April 3, 2020 at 3:02 pm

Thank you for this, this is awesome and my students will love it. I appreciate you making these for us to share!

April 14, 2020 at 7:00 pm

Thank you so much for these videos! My first-grade daughter is following along and loving it!

however, we cannot find downloadable files for the circle-map and Say & Sketch templates. The links did not populate in the description area of your YouTube videos. Can you please advise how to locate or can you include here?

April 17, 2020 at 12:56 pm

Hi Judy! When looking at the YT videos for the links, I think you have to actually head to the YouTube platform to see the description of the video. If this links don’t show, you will press the down arrow next to my video title or press “show more” and the rest of the description should show up for you to access everything!

Here are the links for those 2 videos: CIRCLE MAP: http://bit.ly/SJcirclemap SAY & SKETCH SHEET: http://bit.ly/SJsaynsketch

April 21, 2020 at 9:26 am

Thank you so very much for sharing your amazing videos. They are such a great help during these unprecedented times,especially for a Luddite like me!!! They have taken all the stress out my teaching life. Thank you again.

May 13, 2020 at 7:41 pm

What a wonderful teacher you are! I feel very lucky to be able to share your awesome lessons with my students during Distance Learning! Thank you so much!

August 29, 2020 at 12:08 am

Hi there! I am obsessed with these writing videos! I teach first grade and have been trying to wrap my head around teaching my lesson virtually. I am totally following your lead! How can I get the first, next and last rectangular box page? Thanks, Alex

March 6, 2022 at 9:52 pm

Thank you soo much! I am new to grade 2 and trying to figure out how to teach personal narratives to my students after 2 years of very little writing due to the Pandemic. Your videos were fantastic and so helpful. Thank you for sharing! Elizabeth D.

November 5, 2022 at 10:37 am

Love this!!

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Personal Narrative Writing Unit THIRD GRADE

Grade Level: 3rd Grade

My third grade personal narrative writing unit includes 8 weeks of done-for-you writing lessons about how to write a small moment story. This unit contains detailed lesson plans, mentor texts, anchor charts, student writing tasks, and rubrics –everything you need to be a capable, confident writing teacher with students who love to write.

Also available in the following bundles

More about this resource

If teaching writing has ever made you cry, weep, tear out your hair, question your existence, or binge-watch reality television—because it’s just that frustrating and overwhelming—this writing unit is perfect for you.

If your students dread writing time more than meatloaf in the school cafeteria…this writing bundle is perfect for them, too.

Teaching writing can be tough. Teachers tell me that their district-provided writing curriculum is:

too complicated

Or worse, they don’t have any curriculum at all. Yikes!

But my third grade personal narrative writing unit makes teaching writing easy . It takes all the guesswork out of teaching writing and gives you the tools you need to teach engaging and effective writing lessons without breaking a sweat.

This resource is part of a money-saving writing bundle! Click HERE to see the bundle!

The ready-to-use lessons and activities in this personal narrative writing unit will teach your students how to write a small moment story with dialogue, a strong lead, interesting word choice, and paragraphs. And all you have to do is print and teach . The lesson plans are that simple. Seriously.

Student-friendly mentor texts make it easy to provide illustrative examples of new writing skills. You don’t have to waste your time and money hunting down just the right book. Focused mini lessons and daily writing tasks simplify the writing process helping ALL students, even reluctant writers, experience success. Preprinted anchor charts make it easy to model new skills and engage in shared writing without wasting valuable time.

And best of all, my personal narrative writing unit makes writing fun for your students. Short, focused lessons keep students engaged. Simple, direct writing tasks help kids develop confidence.

Choice empowers students to write about things they care about and makes them more invested in their writing. And that’s a big deal because students who enjoy writing and get lots of practice perform better on standardized testing.

How Our Writing Bundles are Aligned with the Science of Reading :

Structured writing routine: Our writing bundle is organized into 4 genres. Each 8-week unit is carefully structured, beginning with foundational skills before moving into more advanced skills. Students are taught a systematic approach to writing including: brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.
Explicit instruction: Daily lessons begin with explicit instruction including access to examples via mentor texts, modeling, and directed practice. Each skill is broken down into bite-size pieces so that students can learn one skill at a time. Students practice skills independently, working on one sentence or paragraph at a time.
Differentiation: Writing is differentiated through small group instruction that provides reteaching, additional practice, and support at appropriate levels.
Daily opportunities to write: The majority of the writing lesson is reserved for independent writing time, providing students with large blocks of time to write and practice skills every day.
Demonstrates the connection between reading and writing: Mentor texts provide concrete examples of writing skills and allow children to experiment with and apply sophisticated skills and language in their own writing. In addition, constructing their own writing pieces helps students recognize, connect, and understand these strategies when reading.

What’s Included:

Detailed teacher directions and suggestions for simple implementation
Unit-at-a-glance calendar for each unit
7 exclusive videos walking you through how to get the most out of these writing units
40 days of lesson plans that include guiding questions, materials, mini lessons, student work tasks, student share tasks, intervention, and several extension activities
14 original mentor text passages
24 personal narrative task cards ( now also in black & white)
24 punctuating dialogue task cards ( now also in black & white)
24 personal narrative writing prompts task cards ( now also in black & white)
12 teacher anchor charts (blank and filled in versions)
Student anchor charts and printable for writing notebooks
Conference and goal tracking forms
Writing grades tracking forms
List of 12 additional mentor text books (Remember, using them is optional, because I’ve included all the mentor texts you need)
20 different writing publishing papers
Student writing notebook cover and dividers
Teacher notebook covers and binder spines
Multiple ideas for author share celebration
DIGITAL writing notebooks on Google Slides
JUST ADDED: Conferencing Materials – Conference outlines, a sample conference, and topic cards you can use to guide your small-group conferences
JUST ADDED: Student Success Path – Identify where your students are on their writing journey
JUST ADDED: Starting Writing Workshop Bonus – Two weeks of writing lessons plans to help build stamina and set your students up for writing success

Skills Covered:

Students learn h ow to write a small moment story with dialogue, a strong lead, interesting word choice, and paragraphs. Lessons include:

Setting goals
What is a personal narrative?
Generating story ideas
Narrowing your story idea to a small moment
Rehearsing and drafting
Writing a lead
Adding and punctuating dialogue
Adding details
Word choice
Show, don’t tell
Breaking writing into paragraphs
Transition words
Writing an ending

How to Use it in the Classroom:

A typical day of writing:.

I recommend you set aside 30-45 minutes for writing each day (or more if you have it). Check out the sample schedules below. Each day follows the same plan:

Mini-Lesson (10-15 minutes): The day kicks off with a mini-lesson to teach a particular skill. The mini-lesson uses mentor text (remember, it’s included in the unit) and anchor charts. For the teacher version of the anchor charts, you can project and fill them out with the class, or print and display them in your classroom. The student versions are smaller so they can fill them out and keep them in their writing notebooks for reference.
Work Time (20-25 minutes) : Students will apply the skill they just learned into their writing each day. The included writing tasks make it crystal-clear what to do during independent writing time–for you and your students. By the end of the unit, they will have completed two full masterpieces and many other independent writings.
Share Time (2-5 minutes) : Students are encouraged to share a piece of their writing with a partner or with the entire class. This makes writing more meaningful to kids and holds them accountable.

Organization made easy:

The personal narrative writing unit is organized into multiple folders and files so it’s easy for you to find what you need.
A 40-day daily schedule so you know exactly what to teach each day.
Detailed daily lesson plans make teaching writing easy.

Differentiation:

There are many ways to differentiate writing assignments:

These daily writing prompts are intentionally short and sweet so that all students, even those below grade level, can feel successful. Most tasks can be completed in 1-2 sentences.
More advanced writers can write longer responses, or work on a second masterpiece if they finish early.
Students can complete fewer task cards or work with a partner; you can also provide support to students as they work on task cards.
The process for teaching writing includes group conferencing time. These groups should be based on ability so that you can individualize your instruction to meet the specific needs of the group.

Why you’ll love this writing unit:

You’ll save hours of prepping and planning time. The daily lesson plans are easy to implement. All you have to do is print and teach.
Mentor texts are included. You do not need to hunt down or purchase any additional books! (Unless you want to. Far be it from me to stand between a teacher and new books.)
Digital anchor charts project onto your white board-so you don’t have to be Picasso or Renoir to anchor your kids in the lesson.
Pre-printed student anchor charts make it easy for students to follow along without having to write every word and draw complicated diagrams.
Digital student notebooks are perfect for 1:1 classrooms and a great way to save paper.
These lessons work for all students, even students below grade level.
Task cards incorporate movement, reinforce concepts, and make learning fun. Daily share time encourages students to take pride in their writing.
Direct writing instruction provides a solid foundation of writing skills that leads to increased test scores.
Aligned with the Science of Reading .

*****************************

More Third Grade Writing Units:

Informational Writing for Third Grade

Opinion Writing for Third Grade

Fiction Narrative for Third Grade

Writing Bundles for Other Grade Levels:

Second Grade Writing Bundle

Fourth Grade Writing Bundle

Fifth Grade Writing Bundle

Additional Resources You Might Like:

3rd Grade Spelling Curriculum Bundle

Frequently Asked

Yes. I also have informational writing , opinion essay , and fiction narrative writing units available.

This personal narrative writing unit is available for grade 3. I also have personal narrative writing units available for grades two , four , and five .

I prefer composition notebooks because they are sturdy and easy to use and store. But other teachers have used spiral bound notebooks or three-ring binders.

Yes. These writing lessons are based on Common Core standards.

The lessons for consecutive grade levels are very similar because the standards are similar. The biggest difference is that the reading level on the mentor text passages is modified to meet the specific grade level. Other differences include new examples in the lesson plans and anchor charts and new task cards. It is generally fine to use units that are one level above or below grade level. You might want to select the lower grade level to ensure that the mentor texts are easier for students to read.

Each unit includes eight weeks of materials. I recommend spending 30-45 on writing each day. The lesson takes 8-10 minutes and the rest of the time would be used for independent writing.

Students complete two masterpieces in each unit. But they may work on additional pieces if they finish daily assignments early.

My writing units are a standalone curriculum. They are not based on or aligned with any other curriculum. However, they are based on the writing standards. My curriculum is organized into units of study and formatted in the workshop model and hundreds of teachers have successfully used my writing units with their district provided curriculum.

My writing units are a standalone curriculum. They are not based on or aligned with any other curriculum. With that being said, I have hundreds of teachers who have chosen to use my units as a supplement to their Lucy curriculum because it is more manageable and engaging for students.

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Personal Narrative Writing Lesson 5: Adding an Emotional Hook
Personal Narrative Writing Lesson 22: Choosing a Title
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E2E Narrative Revision Skill #1: Anticipating and Answering Readers’ Questions (“Add Details”)
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COMMENTS

15 Personal Narrative Mini-Lessons
Students turn and talk to share an idea they have for writing. Day 2 - Read p. 10 - 11. Create an anchor chart for parts of personal narrative writing. Create a list of transition words to use in each part. I have students glue a beginning, middle, end page and a transition word page into their writer's notebooks. Day 3 - Read p. 12 - 14.
How to Write a Personal Narrative: Steps and Examples
However, like any other type of writing, it comes with guidelines. 1. Write Your Personal Narrative as a Story. As a story, it must include an introduction, characters, plot, setting, climax, anti-climax (if any), and conclusion. Another way to approach it is by structuring it with an introduction, body, and conclusion.
650 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing
Here is a PDF of all 650 prompts, and we also have a related lesson plan, From 'Lives' to 'Modern Love': Writing Personal Essays With Help From The New York Times.. Below, a list that ...
A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing
Step 2: Study the Structure of a Story. Now that students have a good library of their own personal stories pulled into short-term memory, shift your focus to a more formal study of what a story looks like. Use a diagram to show students a typical story arc like the one below.
Teach Narrative Writing With The New York Times
This teaching guide, part of our eight-unit writing curriculum, includes daily writing prompts, lessons based on selected mentor texts, and an invitation for students to participate in our 100 ...
Narrative Writing Mini Lessons
In this video, we cover the six different types of leads you can use to begin your personal narrative piece. You'll practice writing various leads for your chosen topic, picking your best one to begin your narrative. For this lesson, you will need: Narrative Writing Leads Handout. Writing Your Own Leads Handout. 2:37.
How To Introduce Personal Narrative Writing Complete Lesson Plan
Step-By-Step Lesson: 1.) Do not tell your students what personal narratives are. In this lesson you will not tell your students what narratives are. You will not give them a slideshow or a definition. You will allow your students to read and listen to narratives, and they will decide what the narrative form is by interacting with several ...
Personal Narrative Writing Guide
A personal narrative is a means for the writer to explore the meaning of the events in their life. It is, at its core, an introspective and creative endeavor that focuses as much on the interior life of the writer as it does on external events. While the conclusion of a traditional recount usually provides some of the writer's insights, in a ...
How To Write a Personal Narrative With Examples
5 Personal Narrative Examples. We've discussed the definition of a personal narrative and the steps to writing one. Now, let's review a handful of examples. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Me Talk Pretty One Day is both the name of a personal narrative and a best-selling collection of essays published in 2000 by David Sedaris. The ...
Teaching Narrative Writing with Must Have Lessons
Components of Narrative Writing. The first lessons I begin when teaching narratives is to start with what narratives are. We read a few personal narrative type stories and then we dive into our beginning lessons. I'll reference some of the stories we read to discuss what they all have in common. Students are shown short examples and we ...
Narrative Writing: A Complete Guide for Teachers and Students
A narrative can spark emotion, encourage reflection, and convey meaning when done well. Narratives are a popular genre for students and teachers as they allow the writer to share their imagination, creativity, skill, and understanding of nearly all elements of writing. We occasionally refer to a narrative as 'creative writing' or story writing.
Personal Narrative Writing Teaching Resources
Aligned with both TEKS and the Common Core ELA curriculum, this collection of printable and digital resources is stocked with everything you need to plan lessons on writing personal narrative essays this school year. Explore prompts designed to help students get started writing their personal stories, graphic organizers that can help them ...
Personal Narrative
The following are the skills around which the curriculum is centered: Communicative Fluency. Ethical Reasoning. Problem Solving (Critical and Creative) Information Literacy. Global and Cultural Awareness and Responsiveness. A personal narrative project will strengthen several of the above skills as you craft a narrative using your own ...
How to teach Personal Narratives to Kindergarten, First, and Second
Are you teaching your students how to write personal narratives? In this video, I walk through all the lessons I would teach when introducing personal narrat...
How to Teach Personal Narrative Writing to Students in a Creative Way
We have to show through our writing what that sadness looks like. To begin, use writing posters that model what writing in detail looks like. Go over them with the students and show them how the sentences are different and why the sentences with more detail are better. The next step is to work as a class on adding adjectives to sentences.
2nd Grade Personal Narratives Writing Unit
Personal narrative writing prompts, graphic organizers, and worksheets. Once you're finished the mini lesson, it's time for students to write! This unit includes - 17 personal narrative graphic organizers / worksheets; 1 writing prompt pre-assessment; 8 lined pages (for first drafts and crafts) 2 checklists
PDF personal narrative
Personal narratives are stories about real-life experiences. These stories ZOOM IN on a moment in time and tell what really happened to the author. While other narratives can be make believe or fantasy stories, personal narratives are non-fiction stories, based on facts and real events from the author s life YOUR life!
Personal Narrative Writing Unit FIFTH GRADE
Add to Wish List. $25.00 - Add to Cart. Grade Level: 5th Grade. My fifth grade personal narrative writing unit includes 8 weeks of done-for-you writing lessons about how to write a small moment story. This unit contains detailed lesson plans, mentor texts, anchor charts, student writing tasks, and rubrics-everything you need to be a capable ...
Kindergarten Writing: Personal Narrative Curriculum
Kindergarten Writing Curriculum Scope: There are a total of 7 units included in this comprehensive writing curriculum: Unit 1: Personal Narrative: Sharing My Story. Unit 2: Non-Realistic Fiction: Using our Imagination. Unit 3: Writing to Teach and Inform: How-to-Books. Unit 4: Poetry: Exploring Poetry. Unit 5: Realistic-Fiction: Writing ...
Writing a Personal Narrative in Three Easy Lessons
describe the setting. describe the people involved. Step 3: Edit and revise the narratives with your students, or have the kids read their work aloud to partners, listening for and suggesting any changes. Step 4: Enjoy an afternoon of read-alouds! Writing a personal narrative puts kids in touch with themselves and each other!
Narrative Writing
Our Narrative Writing - Personal Narratives lesson plan introduces students to writing personal narratives. The lesson provides instruction and suggestions to help students think of ideas and add details to their own stories. Beginning with this sort of writing allows students to make a personal connection with the assignment, which will ...
Writing Personal Narratives in 1st Grade: A Week of Lessons!
Writing Personal Narratives: 5 part mini-series. Within this 5 video playlist, I included a video for brainstorming, planning, adding illustrations, adding words, adding the details, editing, and publishing! We essentially walk through the entire writing process in a simple, easy-to-follow format. These videos and lessons were made for teachers ...
The Right to Read and Write: A Personal Narrative Workshop with
Join NYPL and New York Writers Workshop for a special writing workshop series, Unbound: Writing in a Contentious Landscape. ... Banned Books, Writing Workshops: The Right to Read and Write: A Personal Narrative Workshop with Marguerite Maria Rivas. Date and Time. Wednesday, April 3, 2024, 11 AM - 12:15 PM. ... resources and workshops that teach ...
4 Lessons Learned Writing a Braided Narrative
4 Lessons Learned Writing a Braided Narrative. Author Johanna Garton shares four lessons learned writing a braided narrative. A word count representing six weeks of work stared back at me. Cutting it was the easy part, requiring only a few keystrokes and placement of the words into a holding document. I called it my parking lot, and though it ...
Climate Writing Through Personal Narrative
Climate Writing Through Personal Narrative Tuesday, April 09, 2024 to 8:00pm Building 9, 255 105 MASSACHUSETTS AVE, Cambridge, MA 02139
Climate Writing Through Personal Narrative
2024-04-09 00:00:00 2024-04-09 20:00:00 America/New_York Climate Writing Through Personal Narrative In this event in our ongoing Planetary Health series, writer and MIT faculty member Kym Ragusa will help us to explore the power of personal narrative and creative writing for processing the global environmental changes that are reshaping our worlds.
Personal Narrative Writing Unit THIRD GRADE
Add to Wish List. $25.00 - Add to Cart. Grade Level: 3rd Grade. My third grade personal narrative writing unit includes 8 weeks of done-for-you writing lessons about how to write a small moment story. This unit contains detailed lesson plans, mentor texts, anchor charts, student writing tasks, and rubrics-everything you need to be a capable ...

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Telling the Story of Yourself: 6 Steps to Writing Personal Narratives

Jennifer Xue

Table of Contents

1. Write Your Personal Narrative as a Story

2. Give Your Personal Narrative a Clear Purpose

3. Show, Don't Tell

4. Use "I," But Don't Overuse It

5. Pay Attention to Tenses

6. Make Your Conclusion Satisfying

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen

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The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

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Educated by Tara Westover

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A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing

A Note About Form: Personal Narrative or Short Story?

A Note About Process: Write With Your Students

A Narrative Writing Unit Plan

Step 1: Show Students That Stories Are Everywhere

Step 2: Study the Structure of a Story

Step 3: Introduce the Assignment

Step 4: Read Models

Step 5: Story Mapping

Step 6: Quick Drafts

Step 7: Plan the Pacing

Step 8: Long Drafts

Step 9: Workshop

Step 10: Final Revisions and Edits

Step 11: Final Copies and Publication

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Teach Narrative Writing With The New York Times

Start with personal-narrative prompts for low-stakes writing.

Read mentor texts and try some of the “writer’s moves” we spotlight.

Enter our “ Tiny Memoir” Personal Narrative Essay Contest .

Additional Resources

How To Introduce Personal Narrative Writing Complete Lesson Plan

Step-By-Step Lesson For Personal Narrative Writing:

2.) Compile several high interest personal narratives.

3.) Give students a handout for recording their observations.

4.) After your students have listened to and read narratives, reconvene as a class to discuss.

5.) Encourage students to start thinking about their own stories.

Your free lesson on narrative writing:

Join the English Teacher Vault membership and get access to over 250 ready-to-go lessons.

How To Write A Personal Narrative + 5 Personal Narrative Examples

What Is a Personal Narrative?

How To Write a Personal Narrative

5 Personal Narrative Examples

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Teaching Narrative Writing with Must Have Lessons

Components of Narrative Writing

Small Moments

Story Illustrations

Question Words

Tell me, what are your most important lessons when teaching narrative writing?

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Narrative Writing: A Complete Guide for Teachers and Students

MASTERING THE CRAFT OF NARRATIVE WRITING

WHAT IS A NARRATIVE?

A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING NARRATIVE WRITING

TYPES OF NARRATIVE WRITING

CHARACTERISTICS OF NARRATIVE WRITING

NARRATIVE FEATURES

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THE 5 KEY STORY ELEMENTS OF A GREAT NARRATIVE (6-MINUTE TUTORIAL VIDEO)

HOW TO WRITE A NARRATIVE

FREE SAMPLE OF ROOTED IN READING!