A Look Back at Personal Narratives

We are finally coming to the end of our first writing unit of the year.  The students have been working hard on writing personal narratives, which are true (or mostly true) stories that feature themselves as the main character.  The first part of the unit involved the students collecting ideas and moments from their lives that could be written like a story.  They learned several strategies for developing their personal narrative writing, including:

• Narrowing a topic from a "big watermelon," a broad, general topic such as "my trip to California" or "My dog" into a "small seed," which is a more specific moment in time - for example, instead of "my trip to California," the topic could be "my first time surfing" or "meeting Mickey Mouse at Disneyland." 
• Generating lists of ideas and then writing entries off of those lists.  The students thought of people, places, or objects that mattered to them, made lists of times spent with those people, places or objects, and then selected items off their lists to write entries in their Writers' Notebooks.  
• Generating ideas from the first times and last times they experienced things.  
• Understanding that their narratives didn't have to be about something huge that happened in their lives; just something that had some significance to them.  

Next, it was time for the students to choose a topic that they would expand into a published piece.  Students were encouraged to look back over their entries and look for repeated ideas; things they wrote about more than once.  The choice of a topic was not one to be taken lightly.  After they settled on a topic to write on, the students began the process of drafting.  During this bend in the road, the students learned ways to:

• Study published writing to get ideas for how to create the lead, or opening sentences, of their stories.  
• Tell the difference between summarizing the events of a story and actually telling the story. 
• Creating a "heart" to their story by thinking about what they really wanted to get across in the story and determining what would be the most important part.  
• Slow down the action by adding thoughts, action, dialogue, and description (or TADD) to critical scenes
• Use the closing of their stories to really drive home the central ideas of their stories.  
• Tell the story from their perspective and staying within that perspective throughout the piece.
• Adding even more detail to critical moments by bringing in memories of the past (flashbacks) and thinking into the future (flash forwards).

Now the students are beginning to see the final shape of their finished writing projects.  They have written several drafts, and are close to creating a final draft that will eventually be published in several formats.  Students are now putting the "finishing touches" on their writing by:

• Making sure they are breaking their texts up into paragraphs, with each paragraph signaling a new speaker speaking, a change in place or time, or a new key idea. 
• Varying the length of their sentences so their writing can give a sense of flow. 
• Checking their spelling, word choice, and verb tense.  
• Using commas correctly 

Soon the students will have completed their first writing projects of the year!  I'm very excited to see how they turn out!

-Mr. Ullman