C & R Chapter 8 Teaching Students to Write Narratives

The first step in writing narratives is for students to write a personal narrative. This type of narrative works well for beginning writers, because it levels out the playing field in terms of background knowledge. The author suggests teaching narrative structure in a culturally responsive way because not all cultures use the same narrative form. In this chapter, the author presents the sequence for teaching narratives by giving a pre and post assessment as well as four phases of writing. The phases start out with explicit modeling and scaffolding which lead to a gradual release of independence as writers learn more about the genre and are able to write independently. For assessment one, the teacher provides the students with a prompt asking them to write about something that happened to them. The teacher scores the writing with a rubric and gauges what knowledge the student has or doesn’t have for personal narratives. Some activities that can be used in phase one include: providing students with model narratives and highlighting important narrative elements, creating a class anchor chart of narrative parts, piecing together a narrative that has been scrambled into sentence strips (together and later independently), and comparing and contrasting books that are and aren’t narratives while providing explanations as to why it fits a narrative genre. Assessment two asks the students to compare two texts and determine which is a narrative and explain why with details. Phase two includes step 5, 6, and assessment 3.  Steps five and six involve using a narrative checklist to evaluate a text to determine if it contains all narrative elements. In step five the teacher introduces the checklist and shows students how it can be used while reading through a narrative to determine its effectiveness. For assessment three, students are given two checklists and two narratives. The student is to read and score each narrative, so that they can decide which one is better because it includes more narrative parts. Phase three involves learning how to write narratives independently and includes steps seven through 11, and assessment four. In step seven, the teacher models how to use the narrative graphic organizer on pg. 136 using an event everyone experienced. As a small group, students then use the organizer to plan a new narrative. The teacher provides students with a list of topics that the class experienced together. In step eight the teachers and students complete an interactive write in which the teacher models for students how to use the completed graphic organizer to write a narrative. The students also use the checklist to evaluate the class narrative. In step nine, students can work in small groups or pairs where they take more ownership in planning and writing. Students pick a topic and plan as a group. After planning, groups swap plans and evaluate one another using the checklist. In step ten, students plan, write and evaluate their narratives and peers. If students are struggling to write independently the author suggests using a narrative frame, audio recorder, or using pictures for ideas. Students then have a peer look over their work and use their suggestions to revise their writing. Lastly, the students are assessed using assessment four which asks the students to write a narrative independently. The student’s work is scored using the same rubric from assessment one to gauge how they’ve grown as a writer. The goal of this process is for students to first become familiar with the genre and later learn to use that knowledge to plan and write. The author suggests using this process as well with other narratives. 

I really enjoyed reading this chapter, and I am excited to try out this process with my students!