Narrative Lesson Plan Ideas
Narrative writing lessons can inspire students to write about and share their experiences.
By Dawn Dodson
Narrative writing is perhaps one of the easiest forms of writing for students and adults to connect to and create. Put simply, narratives are stories and essays based on our life experiences. From “getting-to-know-you” writing assignments to writing from the perspective of a fictional character, narrative writing can lead us through the writing process to create meaningful pieces of writing. Thus, narrative writing is a genre that can be used by all writers, novice and advanced alike.
With this in mind, I begin the school year with narrative writing. Students create timelines of their lives, make lists of likes and dislikes, and describe their bedrooms, etc . . . in writer’s notebooks. Students even write a letter to themselves describing their experiences at the beginning of the school year, and get the letters back at the end of the year to evaluate how they have changed after one year of middle school. These assignments give them a list of ideas that can be used for later pieces. I find that students have an easier time writing about themselves than writing about unrelated topics. More importantly, these assignments make writing a meaningful exercise. I often remind students that diaries and journals are forms of narrative writing. I enjoy their facial expressions as I tell them they’ve been writing narratives long before they step foot into my classroom.
Narrative writing can easily be included in daily instruction. In addition to classroom journal entries and the get-to-know-you letter assignments, students can move through the writing process to create a final draft of a narrative essay. Revision is the most difficult concept for my students to master. I find that using a piece of writing that students connect with can help to make their writing more descriptive, or help them to more easily transition their writing from one event to the next. If they have experienced what they wrote about, it is easy to ask them to go back to that moment in time to think about what things looked like, smelled like, felt like , etc . . . Another way I have incorporated narrative writing into language arts instruction is by having students write from the perspective of a character in a novel. I have used this with both fiction and nonfiction literature. This allows students to make inferences and predictions about what they’ve read. All in all I have found this style of writing versatile and easy to modify in order to teach a variety of concepts in a variety of classroom settings. For more narrative writing lesson plans and ideas see below.
Narrative Writing Lessons:
This lesson can be easily modified for any grade level. Using the summer season as a topic, students create a story and PowerPoint to narrate their experiences. Students use a sequence map to help compose a coherent essay.
Narrative Writing for Publication
Using the traditional plot line as a reference, students create a narrative story formatted as a journal or diary. Microsoft Publisher is utilized in the final copy of the story.
Writing an Ending for “The Giver”:
After reading “The Giver” by Lois Lowry, students predict what will happen next. Main character traits and actions are taken into account as students write an additional chapter in narrative form.
Students learn about voice through reading an example of a narrative essay. Using the example as a guide, students brainstorm ideas for their own narrative in order to begin writing an original essay.
