Personal Narrative Writing Unit - Start of Year, Back to School

It’s sometimes hard to get students engaged in writing. It can be daunting and stressful at times for students who find literacy difficult. This personal narrative writing unit, which is suitable for upper primary/middle school aged students, is an excellent way to build a love of writing within your classroom.
It is planned to be scaffolded, meaning all levels of students can plan to succeed! What’s better, it can be adapted for any curriculum!

What’s included?

For all parts, you will get a template link to Canva (free account required!), so you can edit anything to your curriculum needs. I have included all the accompanying worksheets as PDF files for download as well as the template link, but the powerpoint you can download directly (or use through Canva) from Canva.

Six Lessons + Writing Workshop Guide: 36 slides in total (You may want to break these up even more depending on the pace your class usually works at!)

1. What makes a story?
   • Brainstorm what students know already
   • Personal narrative explanation
   • Elements of a personal narrative (story mountain)
   • Analyzing personal narrative structure. Worksheet 1: sample story, story analysis worksheet + answers)

2. Brinstorming
   • What would you rather game for whole class – narrative edition!
   • Brainstorming topics using prompts (space for own topic too!) – Worksheet 2 (Part 1)
   • Discussion questions for pair oral review of brainstorms
   • Focusing on one topic from brainstorm – Worksheet 2 (Part 2)

3. Planning your narrative
   • Reviewing story structure using the plot mountain – Worksheet 3
   • Putting ideas for the narrative into an organizer using the plot structure – Worksheet 4 (Part 1)
   • Peer review of organizer – Worksheet 4 (Part 2)

4. The power of the senses
   • Discussion about showing, not telling
   • Understanding the five senses
   • Identifying the senses within a text – Worksheet 5 (Part 1)
   • Thinking with the senses by relating sensory details to students’ own narratives – Worksheet 5 (Part 2)

5. Using figurative language
   • Discussion about what makes writing ‘pop’
   • Working with similes, metaphors and personification
   • Using figurative language to describe pictures (pairs)
   • Identifying various types of figurative language – Worksheet 6 (Part 1)
   • Applying figurative language to an element of the students’ plot for practice – Worksheet 6 (Part 2)

6. Crafting a compelling lead
   • Discussing what a good hook, or lead sentence, entails
   • Deconstruct examples of good opening lines (leads) by talk time in pairs
   • Brainstorm leads by creating a number of different opening sentences, then choosing the best one – Worksheet 7

Writing Workshop Lessons
These lesson lengths should be tailored to your class and needs.
• Setting up for writing workshops – instructions
• Using transition words (Transition word mat included)
• Check while you write – student checklist, teacher checklist, teacher feedback form and peer assessment worksheets all included.