Curated OER
Narrative Writing: Using Exact Words
Review the narrative writing process with your emerging story writers. They read a sample narrative and identify five vague verbs that could be replaced with a more exact, exciting verb. Then they write a personal narrative making sure...
Teach with Movies
Teaching Students to Write a Narrative
Encourage narrative writing with a clever exercise. Class members watch episodes from movies and describe what happened to a character, including details about the setting, plot, and characters. Writers then craft a narrative about a...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing Lesson
Sixth graders experience the stages of process writing, work cooperatively, to critique and to incorporate software tools to enhance writing and problem solving skills.
Curated OER
Narrative Writing
Binoculars are used as a metaphor for good descriptive writing. Class members first view a small picture and then an enlarged view of the same image in which the details come into focus. Next, learners examine a paragraph lacking sensory...
EngageNY
Writing and Sharing: A Narrative of Adversity Plan
When life brings you lemons .. write about it! Scholars work with partners to complete graphic organizers analyzing two narratives. Next, they develop an outline for their narrative writing assignment about a personal experience with...
Curated OER
Writing and Autobiography
Are you working on an autobiographical or narrative writing unit? Bring this lesson to your class, as it takes young writers through the process of drafting and sequencing an autobiography. After observing and demonstrating steps of the...
ReadWriteThink
A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words: From Image to Detailed Narrative
A picture's worth a thousand words—and even more inspiration! A visual activity uses photographs to inspire writers. The process teaches aspects of narrative writing, such as point of view and characterization.
Curated OER
Planning and Drafting a Personal Narrative
Bring your learners together to write a class narrative about the first day of school. Start off by teaching them about sequence with a quick oral activity. Then, work together to fill out a story map. Finally, compose the class...
EngageNY
End of Unit Assessment, Part 2: Drafting Introduction and Conclusion of a Narrative
First and last impressions matter. Scholars compose the introductory and concluding sections of their narrative writing assignments. Also, to prepare for an upcoming performance task, pupils watch a modern-day monologue from the movie...
Curated OER
Shakespeare and Poe Teach Six-Trait Writing
A Six-Trait Writing instructional activity helps your middle schoolers liven up their word choice and shows them how to evaluate their own writing. Class members take a close look at the language used in poems by Shakespeare, Kipling,...
Curated OER
Sense, Sensibility and Sentences: Examining and Writing Memorable Lines
Involve your readers in finding works of literary genius. Have each individual write down compelling sentences that they read or hear, whether in a newspaper, advertisement, book, movie, song, or any other place! Once each person has a...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 17: Novel, Take 2
It's all about using peer resources in this writing process lesson, which includes a fantastic novel revision worksheet packet. Learners have read a partner's story draft the night before, and groups have a "lightning round of praise"...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 11: Beginnings
Every good novel needs a solid beginning! Setting the stage can have your budding authors stumped, so use this instructional activity to get them thinking. After examining the plot rollercoaster image (included) they consider the four...
Curated OER
Developing a Topic for Writing Using an Idea Web
Teach your upper graders how to use an idea web to develop a topic for writing. After reading a variety of stories about friendship (a list of stories with the theme of friendship is included), model using an idea web. Class members...
EngageNY
Writing to Show, Not Tell: Dialogue, Sensory Words, and Strong Action Verbs
Consume, gobble, devour ... serving up strong verbs! Writers focus on using dialogue, strong action verbs, and sensory details in their writing. After analyzing a model narrative, they apply their learning to their own hero's journey...
Digital Public Library of America
Teaching Guide: Exploring Little Women
Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is a literary masterpiece as well as a timestamp of the formative mid-nineteenth century in America. Using a primary source set of photographs, letters, and portraits, readers discuss the ways...
Curated OER
Reliving History through Slave Narratives
Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this lesson prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...
Curated OER
Blogging to Create a Community of Writers #1: Setting Up the Blog
Writer's workshop is an idea that's been around for years. Students write, read, and comment on each others writing in an authentic and thoughtful way. Here is a 21st century twist, 6th graders will use the class blog to create a...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit Assessment and Establishing a Context for My Hero’s Journey Narrative
How do writers engage their readers in a story? Pupils consider the question and use the informational text, "The Hero's Journey" to justify their plan for their own fictional narrative. To that end, scholars write an explanatory...
EngageNY
Writing: Analyzing the Conclusion of “The Golden Key” and Drafting a Compelling Conclusion for the Hero’s Journey Narrative
There's something different here. Using a note-catcher, scholars determine the differences between the conclusion of a piece of analytical writing and the conclusion of a narrative. Next, they begin drafting their own narrative...
EngageNY
Introduction: Writing a Narrative of Adversity
A little adversity is good for writing. Scholars review narrative-based monologues and concrete poems and choose which genre to use to express their own theme of adversity. Pupils also consider how to structure their narratives by...
EngageNY
“The Hero’s Journey”: Analyzing a Model Narrative and Continuing to Plan a New Hero’s Journey Narrative
Many elements go into an engaging narrative story. Using a helpful resource, scholars analyze a model narrative and deconstruct it using a graphic organizer. Next, they apply their learning from the model to update their plans for their...
EngageNY
Writing the Final Narrative: Monologue or Concrete Poem
Get inspired to help those creative juices flow. Using the resource, scholars write their final, best version of their narrative monologues or concrete poems. Next, they prepare for a performance task by watching and discussing a video...
Scholastic
Thomas Jefferson and Monticello: An Introduction to Writing Historical Fiction
Thomas Jefferson is one of the most recognized names and faces in America—but is there more to the third president of the United States? Upper elementary and middle schoolers conduct research on Jefferson, his famous home at Monticello,...