I am at the close of a unit in crafting personal narratives. This year my students appeared to have many struggles with writing in this genre. Anyway, I taught and retaught using many focal points...One of them was teaching students to use the list of texts below to find a mentor that included some of the craft moves they found interesting and useful enough to carry over into their own work. During the immersion stage of the unit, students browsed these texts looking for features that made "good" narrative exemplars for what they wanted to include in their writing. They also revisited many of these texts as they worked through the writing process.
- Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson
- Jazmin’s Notebook by Nikki Grimes
- Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street by Roni Schotter
- Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe
- Big Mama’s by Donald Crews
- Salt Hands by Jane Chelsea Aragon
- Come On, Rain! by Karen Hesse
- Night in the Country by Cynthia Rylant
- Dear Annie by Judith Caseley
- My Basketball Book by Gail Gibbons
- Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe by Vera B.Williams
- Shortcut by Donald Crews
- Night Shift Daddy by Eileen SpinelliThe Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
- Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee
- Salt Hands by Jane Chelsea Aragon
- Knuffle Bunny by Mo Williams
- Shortcut by Donald Crews
- Fireflies by Judy Brinckloe
- The Paperboy by Dav Pilkey
- The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson
- Saturday and Teacakes by Lester Laminack
- The Leaving Morning by Angela Johnson
- Mrs. Mack by Patricia Polacco
- Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton
- Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts
- Bigmama’s by Donald Crews
- When I Was Your Age by Amy Erlich
- What You Know First by Patricia Maclachlin
- The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant
- When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant
- Every Friday by Dan Yaccarino
- Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco
Below is a list of some of the teaching points I used to move my third graders along in the genre:
- Writers raise the quality of their personal narrative entries when they focus on small moments. Writers reread their "Times when..." webs and lists and choose one to write abut. They create a timeline of the "time when" and rather than writing about the whole timeline, they zoom in to an important moment and write long about it.
- Writers generate ideas for personal narratives by listing turning points in their lives.
- Writers generate ideas for personal narratives by thinking about strong emotions and then thinking about specific times associated with those feelings.
- Writers generate ideas for personal narratives by thinking about a special memory they will never forget.
- Writers reread their entries to find the seed idea that really matters to them. One they want to develop into a published piece. They can do this by asking themselves;of all the entries I've written, is there one idea that says the most about my life or me?Is there one idea I especially want to share with readers?Which one idea will I choose to develop and publish?
- Writers select an idea for their small moment personal narrative and discuss their choice with a pruner to shed their reasoning for selecting that idea.
- Writers use oral storytelling in partnerships to develop a small moment personal narrative using a B-M-M-E structure.
- Writers practice telling their stories in partnerships. Partners offer feedback on what they liked and what they would like to hear more about in the story.
- Writers use a timeline to develop a well structured personal narrative that consists of a series of scenes.
- Writers use storytelling sessions and timelines to make decisions about what they will include in the draft of their personal narrative.
- Writers use the timeline as a note taking organizer and they do not copy what is on the timeline word for word.
- Writers set the scene for their readers in their opening paragraph by asking themselves, "Who is in the narrative" What is it mostly about? Where does the story take place?" and then they draft the paragraph.
- Writers of personal narratives use temporal words to move the reader along the "timeline" of the story.
- Writers of personal narratives develop the heart of their narrative, the most significant part of the piece, to lift the level of their writing by asking themselves, "What is the most important scene in my narrative?"
- Writers add sensory details to their personal narratives to bring the story to life in the reader's head.
- Writers grab the reader's attention by creating a great lead using either setting, dialogue, onomatopoeia , or a question.
- Writers of personal narrative craft different kinds of endings to leave the reader with a powerful feelings in the final lines of their story.
- Writers play close attention to capitalization, punctuation, and dialogue punctuation.
- Writers reread their drafts, making sure proper nouns and the beginning of sentences are capitalized. They make sure the end punctuation helps convey the meaning of the sentence. They compare how they wrote dialogue with who mentor authors write dialogue.
- Writers pay close attention to their spelling so that their writing can be read. They use classroom word wall and personal word lists to check their spelling.
- Writers create a cover illustration that best captures the importance of their story.
Mentor Texts for crafting engaging leads:
Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats
Bigmama's by Donald Crews
When I Lost My Dog
Mentor texts for crafting engaging endings:
Slower Than the Rest by Cynthia Rylant
Spaghetti (Every Living Thing) Cynthia Rylan
My Name is Maria Isabel by Alma Flor Ada
The Last Time I Saw My Grandmother
Professional resources used throughout this unit of study:
Launching the Writers Workshop by Lucy Calkins and Marjorie Martinelli (Units of Study for Teaching Writing: Grades 3-5
Craft Lessons by Ralph Fletcher
Writing Fundamentals 2-3 Launching Unit Overview, by Schoolwide, Inc.
Assessing Writers Carl Anderson
A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You, by Ralph Fletcher
PEACE!
