Introduction:

I believe that in order to foster writing in any classroom, creating a comfortable learning
environment will be the foundation to success. As we strive to do this, our students will thrive in
their learning with less inhibitions and a deeper desire to become an effective writer. Through
the various lessons and activities in this two week writing program, students should be able to
effectively write a personal narrative that describes a significant event they have experienced in
their life. To ensure that the common core standards are met, lessons will be provided that allow
students to explore the concepts of using a variety of transitional words to sequence events,
creating dialogue, playing with concrete words and sensory details to precisely convey events
and providing an impactful conclusion to their story. In order to expound upon the core
standards, I plan to teach my students concepts such as verb usage, cause and effect, playing with
sentence length, etc. that will help them to successfully write a personal narrative.
Objective: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined
experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

Day

Lesson

Writing Activity

Monday

Introduce students to personal narratives

through telling a story of your own that had a
great impact on your life. Focus on the
hook of an introduction and how to catch
your audience's attention. (Questions, quotes,
statistics, dialogue, exclamations)

Provide students with a general list of life events

that impact us in order to help them begin to
brainstorm the story they will write about. Have
your students write 3-5 different hooks that they
could begin their narrative with.

Tuesday

Read any literature with a good example of a

hook in an introduction. Some classic
examples I found were Peter Pan, The Little
Engine that Could and Mr. Poppers
Penguins.

Divide your students into groups of 4 and have

them share the various ways that they wrote the
hook to their story. Provide questions for your
students to hold a discussion. (Question such as:
Did this hook catch your attention? What made it
effective? Why do you want to keep reading?)

Wednesday

Introduce the idea of showing versus telling

through similes and metaphors. Explain the
differences and the words that you need to
use to create a simile and a metaphor (like or
as). Provide an examples from songs
(Lenkas I can do Everything).

Bring a bag of random items into your classroom

and have each student choose an item. With the
item in their hand, students will write a simile or a
metaphor and pass the item to the student behind
next to them. Do this until you feel like your
students are understanding the concept. Ask for a
few volunteers to share their best example with the
class.

Thursday

Read Skin like Milk, Hair as Silk by Brian

Cleary to provide more examples of similes
and metaphors.

Have your students continue to write their

narrative and practice using similes and metaphors
to show (not tell) their experiences and events in a
precise and visual way. Challenge them to use at
least 3 examples in their narrative.

Friday

In order to help students with transitional

words and phrases, introduce how to vary
sentence length using short, medium and
long sentences. Read students an example of
writing that uses the same sentence length
compared to one that uses varying sentence
lengths. Discuss the different feel to both
pieces.

To practice this concept, have students sit in

groups with a clear cup full of water. Have your
students pay attention to what happens as you drop
food coloring into the cup. After the students have
experienced this, have them write about this
experience using varying sentence lengths.

Monday

Help your students to develop their

characters more through dialogue and point
of view. In order to do this, you can read a
book like The Three Little Pigs and compare
it with The True Story of the Three Little
Pigs. Compare and contrast with your
students how perspective and dialogue
makes the story interesting.

Divide your students into small groups and provide

literature (Are you My Mother?, The Cat in the
Hat) that students can play different characters.
Have students work together to create a new
storybook (5-10 pages) from the point of view
from a different character.

Tuesday

Have your students get into their groups

from yesterday and review the importance of
dialogue and character perspective. Have
them fill out a short questionnaire to jog their
memory. Following that, have each group
get with another group and present their
books they created yesterday.

While the students are engaged in the warm-up

activity and presenting, this could be a good time
to conference with your students about their
personal narrative. Set goals and help your
students to implement the things that we have been
learning in class.

Wednesday

Show a short clip on YouTube video of the

Disney World fireworks finale (or any kind
of singing, dancing, etc. finale). Teach
students how to finish strong with an
unforgettable conclusion. Help students to
avoid concluding with only a moral to their
story. Help them to write a conclusion that
will show how the character changed and
how that can be implied in the conclusion.

In order for students to practice this, prepare

examples of good conclusions and bad
conclusions. Have students take this home and
categorize each example as a good or bad
conclusion.

Thursday

After your students have brought back their

homework assignment about conclusions,
have a guided discussion with your students
about the elements that make an effective or

As a final writing day, give time to your students to

finish up their personal narrative. If time permits,
have students get together with a partner to do a

Friday

not as effective conclusion.

peer edit.

Reading day! So your students do not get

bored, it is probably not plausible for
everyone to read. Have your students turn
their narratives in and choose the paper that
you would think would be most beneficial
for the class to hear.

Have your students write a short evaluation of their

favorite story, why they liked it and what they
want to apply in their future writing.