Throughout 10 lessons, fourth graders learn how to plan, organize, write, and edit their own personal narratives. In the beginning, young writers come up with ideas of personal experiences and the emotions linked with those experiences....

Fourth graders act out and write original narratives. In this theater meets writing lesson, 4th graders work in groups to create original narratives; after students act out their story, they write it down as a narrative.

Connect Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate to student experience with this how-to narrative essay. Writers weave the instructions from their own family recipe into a narrative using sensory details. This assignment sheet includes...

Writing is a process, and lesson planning is, too! A personal narrative unit stresses the writing process to pupils, who first examine various stories and poems as a model of autobiographical writing and then write their own stories....

This is a fantastic collection of a wide variety of rubrics for writing, listening, and speaking! The resource contains over 14 rubrics for assessing such items as a summary, autobiographical sketch and narrative, speech, oral...

Fourth graders use a four-square graphic organizer to plan a paragraph writing about a wheelwright. Using gathered research from the previous unit, young writers discover how to organize a plot in preparation for writing a historical...

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...

Need a hero? Super! Groups create their modern-day marvel and craft a narrative with all the elements required in such a tale.

Students write a scene.  In this creative writing lesson, students read The Lightning Thief and discuss the sentence fluency and word choice in the writing.  Students complete a writing assignment where they create an...

Winter, spring, summer, and fall! Every season is covered in a 14-page list of writing prompts. Included are story starters, reflection questions, poetry topics, and more.

As your authors prepare to write a hypothetical novel, they need all the inspiration they can find! Using a book they have already read (and enjoyed), learners complete a literary analysis by filling in eight short-answer...

Here's a fabulous lesson on the life cycle of a butterfly. Youngsters are able to identify and understand the four stages of life. They construct models of a caterpillar and write a sequence story about the life of a butterfly. This...

Using this lesson on blogs, you can lead your class through the process of setting up a blog, writing a blog entry, editing their work, and more. There is a link to the blog site used, and attachments of blog entries.

In the Enemy's Country is a painting that depicts several Native Americans dressed and ready for war. Youngsters analyze the artistic and storytelling elements the artist used to convey his idea. They then write a creative piece from the...

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.

Looking for stimulating writing prompts that won't make young writers cringe? A set of five personal narrative writing prompts engages pupils in analyzing, thinking, connecting, and writing about particular topics. Each...

Using chapter 1 of Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed, middle schoolers write a personal memoir based on Spinelli's style and a Six Trait writing activity. The instructional activity suggests several ways to activate prior knowledge, including a...

An extensive list of narrative prompts is just what you need to inspire young writers to tell their stories. Arranged by topic, the questions are sure give them something to talk about.

Improve your youngsters' descriptive writing. They study an object and write about what they see as a warm-up, then they read an excerpt from Paul Guest's memoir, One More Theory about Happiness. The next part of the...

This St. Patrick's Day, young writers imagine they found a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. After a class discussion and brainstorming, scholars compose a narrative essay making sure they incorporate transitions and at least three...

Are you working on an autobiographical or narrative writing unit? Bring this instructional activity to your class, as it takes young writers through the process of drafting and sequencing an autobiography. After observing and...

Readers take another look at  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass to determine the purpose of the text. They use Frederick Douglass’s Purpose: Text and Questions handout and a close reading guide to direct their thinking. To...

Elementary and middle schoolers research animal facts and use them in a fable. First, they pair-share to find animal traits to use in writing a fable. They then complete a prewriting worksheet. After going through the writing process,...

What is dialogue? What must it contain? Use this plan to discuss dialogue with your emerging writers. They write a dialogue in script form to dramatize a conversation. Dialogue examples are included.