If you really want to know, this is a terrific lesson all about narratives, which is just a fancy way of saying telling stories. And you get to do it without being phony or anything. My favorite part is that you get to read a passage...

If you're looking to start a unit based around narrative writing, make sure to consider this resource while you're planning. This book covers five topics: writing personal narratives, writing narratives about others, writing...

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a comic strip combines both images and words for the ultimate narrative effect. After reading The Three Little Pigs and deciphering the plot elements, elementary readers work through four...

Writers use class time to develop the draft of their personal narratives, drawing on techniques Haley uses in The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Angela Shelf Medearis' Poppa's New Pants provides third graders with an opportunity to stitch together their own narrative filled with sensory details. After reading the story and noting the sensory and concrete details in the tale...

Good literature can be much like an iceberg requiring readers to presume that the bulk of the meaning may be inferred to be found below the surface. Here's a lesson plan that asks scholars to conduct a close reading of passages from The...

As part of their reading of Leslie Marmon Silko's "Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit," class members analyze how the author develops her narrative through dialogue, description, and multiple plot lines.

The fourth instructional activity in this narrative writing unit focuses on how Leslie Marmon Silko uses telling details and sensory language in her "Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit" to bring alive the people of Laguna Pueblo and...

As class members conclude their reading of Leslie Marmon Silko's "Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit," they consider how the story of Kochininako, Yellow Woman, not only provides a satisfying ending to the narrative but also...

Young historians use their planning graphic organizer to prepare a personal narrative draft on expert trades. Since the instructional activity is considered the mid-unit assessment, learners respond to a writing prompt related to the...

Class members take a break from discussing The Autobiography of Malcolm X to focus on their personal narrative essays. Before working on their drafts, they review what they have learned from their study of Haley's narrative about...

The unit offers second graders skills practice in tricky spelling and words, grammar—nouns and punctuation, reading decodable texts, and writing a personal narrative. Lessons begin with a warm-up and go into a concept review, word work,...

A unit explores alternative spellings, ways to include nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and prepositions in sentences, and writing personal narratives. Over 25 lessons, first graders participate in whole group and small group instruction....

Time to go on a journey! Using a graphic organizer, scholars deconstruct Percy Jackson's hero's journey from the Rick Riordan novel, The Lightning Thief. Next, they begin planning their own hero's journey narrative, creating a profile of...

 The narrative works of Frederick Douglass engage learners in the topic of slavery. They will experience American history in a new way, a Douglass expresses his thoughts in his own words. Pupils then interpret this literary...

How does an author sequence events in a narrative so that the events build on one another and create a tone of mystery, growth, or resolution? As part of a study of narrative writing, class members work in pairs to examine the techniques...

Here's a fresh approach to the dreaded personal narrative required by most college applications. The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the anchor text for a unit that, through modeling and guided practice exercises, encourages the...

Get your writers started on their personal essay with a activity that gently guides them into formulating some ideas they might use. Strengths, weaknesses, major experiences, influential individuals, all offer something that can be a...

Reading about history is nothing like experiencing it firsthand. Encourage your eighth graders to do the next best thing with a historical narrative prompt, in which they describe the experience of a first-time traveler on the...

First and third person points of view are the focus of a worksheet that has four practice passages that allow learners to identify the appropriate perspective. Then, they must respond and explain how they know.

Ah, the dreaded college application essay. Here's a unique approach to crafting a powerful personal essay. Class members read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Leslie Marmon Silko's Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit, analyze the...

To underscore the importance of precise diction and sensory details in narratives, class members examine two statements to determine which is more effective and significantly impacts the reader. Individuals then examine their college...

After a brief discussion of their independent reading texts, pairs exchange their college narratives and, using the provided peer review tool, give their partner suggestions on how the draft may be improved.

Zoot suits, the Lindy hop, and conks. Readers carefully examine the rhetoric of chapter 4 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, analyze the effectiveness of using slang to develop a narrative, and consider how they might incorporate Haley's...