how to teach a narrative essay

A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing

July 29, 2018

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“Those who tell the stories rule the world.”  This proverb, attributed to the Hopi Indians, is one I wish I’d known a long time ago, because I would have used it when teaching my students the craft of storytelling. With a well-told story we can help a person see things in an entirely new way. We can forge new relationships and strengthen the ones we already have. We can change a law, inspire a movement, make people care fiercely about things they’d never given a passing thought.

But when we study storytelling with our students, we forget all that. Or at least I did. When my students asked why we read novels and stories, and why we wrote personal narratives and fiction, my defense was pretty lame: I probably said something about the importance of having a shared body of knowledge, or about the enjoyment of losing yourself in a book, or about the benefits of having writing skills in general.

I forgot to talk about the  power of story. I didn’t bother to tell them that the ability to tell a captivating story is one of the things that makes human beings extraordinary. It’s how we connect to each other. It’s something to celebrate, to study, to perfect. If we’re going to talk about how to teach students to write stories, we should start by thinking about why we tell stories at all . If we can pass that on to our students, then we will be going beyond a school assignment; we will be doing something transcendent.

Now. How do we get them to write those stories? I’m going to share the process I used for teaching narrative writing. I used this process with middle school students, but it would work with most age groups.

A Note About Form: Personal Narrative or Short Story?

When teaching narrative writing, many teachers separate personal narratives from short stories. In my own classroom, I tended to avoid having my students write short stories because personal narratives were more accessible. I could usually get students to write about something that really happened, while it was more challenging to get them to make something up from scratch.

In the “real” world of writers, though, the main thing that separates memoir from fiction is labeling: A writer might base a novel heavily on personal experiences, but write it all in third person and change the names of characters to protect the identities of people in real life. Another writer might create a short story in first person that reads like a personal narrative, but is entirely fictional. Just last weekend my husband and I watched the movie Lion and were glued to the screen the whole time, knowing it was based on a true story. James Frey’s book  A Million Little Pieces  sold millions of copies as a memoir but was later found to contain more than a little bit of fiction. Then there are unique books like Curtis Sittenfeld’s brilliant novel American Wife , based heavily on the early life of Laura Bush but written in first person, with fictional names and settings, and labeled as a work of fiction. The line between fact and fiction has always been really, really blurry, but the common thread running through all of it is good storytelling.

With that in mind, the process for teaching narrative writing can be exactly the same for writing personal narratives or short stories; it’s the same skill set. So if you think your students can handle the freedom, you might decide to let them choose personal narrative or fiction for a narrative writing assignment, or simply tell them that whether the story is true doesn’t matter, as long as they are telling a good story and they are not trying to pass off a fictional story as fact.

Here are some examples of what that kind of flexibility could allow:

• A student might tell a true story from their own experience, but write it as if it were a fiction piece, with fictional characters, in third person.
• A student might create a completely fictional story, but tell it in first person, which would give it the same feel as a personal narrative.
• A student might tell a true story that happened to someone else, but write it in first person, as if they were that person. For example, I could write about my grandmother’s experience of getting lost as a child, but I might write it in her voice.

If we aren’t too restrictive about what we call these pieces, and we talk about different possibilities with our students, we can end up with lots of interesting outcomes. Meanwhile, we’re still teaching students the craft of narrative writing.

A Note About Process: Write With Your Students

One of the most powerful techniques I used as a writing teacher was to do my students’ writing assignments with them. I would start my own draft at the same time as they did, composing “live” on the classroom projector, and doing a lot of thinking out loud so they could see all the decisions a writer has to make.

The most helpful parts for them to observe were the early drafting stage, where I just scratched out whatever came to me in messy, run-on sentences, and the revision stage, where I crossed things out, rearranged, and made tons of notes on my writing. I have seen over and over again how witnessing that process can really help to unlock a student’s understanding of how writing actually gets made.

A Narrative Writing Unit Plan

Before I get into these steps, I should note that there is no one right way to teach narrative writing, and plenty of accomplished teachers are doing it differently and getting great results. This just happens to be a process that has worked for me.

Step 1: Show Students That Stories Are Everywhere

Getting our students to tell stories should be easy. They hear and tell stories all the time. But when they actually have to put words on paper, they forget their storytelling abilities: They can’t think of a topic. They omit relevant details, but go on and on about irrelevant ones. Their dialogue is bland. They can’t figure out how to start. They can’t figure out how to end.

So the first step in getting good narrative writing from students is to help them see that they are already telling stories every day . They gather at lockers to talk about that thing that happened over the weekend. They sit at lunch and describe an argument they had with a sibling. Without even thinking about it, they begin sentences with “This one time…” and launch into stories about their earlier childhood experiences. Students are natural storytellers; learning how to do it well on paper is simply a matter of studying good models, then imitating what those writers do.

So start off the unit by getting students to tell their stories. In journal quick-writes, think-pair-shares, or by playing a game like Concentric Circles , prompt them to tell some of their own brief stories: A time they were embarrassed. A time they lost something. A time they didn’t get to do something they really wanted to do. By telling their own short anecdotes, they will grow more comfortable and confident in their storytelling abilities. They will also be generating a list of topic ideas. And by listening to the stories of their classmates, they will be adding onto that list and remembering more of their own stories.

And remember to tell some of your own. Besides being a good way to bond with students, sharing  your stories will help them see more possibilities for the ones they can tell.

Step 2: Study the Structure of a Story

Now that students have a good library of their own personal stories pulled into short-term memory, shift your focus to a more formal study of what a story looks like.

Use a diagram to show students a typical story arc like the one below. Then, using a simple story (try a video like The Present or Room ), fill out the story arc with the components from that story. Once students have seen this story mapped out, have them try it with another one, like a story you’ve read in class, a whole novel, or another short video.

Step 3: Introduce the Assignment

Up to this point, students have been immersed in storytelling. Now give them specific instructions for what they are going to do. Share your assignment rubric so they understand the criteria that will be used to evaluate them; it should be ready and transparent right from the beginning of the unit. As always, I recommend using a single point rubric for this.

Step 4: Read Models

Once the parameters of the assignment have been explained, have students read at least one model story, a mentor text that exemplifies the qualities you’re looking for. This should be a story on a topic your students can kind of relate to, something they could see themselves writing. For my narrative writing unit (see the end of this post), I wrote a story called “Frog” about a 13-year-old girl who finally gets to stay home alone, then finds a frog in her house and gets completely freaked out, which basically ruins the fun she was planning for the night.

They will be reading this model as writers, looking at how the author shaped the text for a purpose, so that they can use those same strategies in their own writing. Have them look at your rubric and find places in the model that illustrate the qualities listed in the rubric. Then have them complete a story arc for the model so they can see the underlying structure.

Ideally, your students will have already read lots of different stories to look to as models. If that isn’t the case, this list of narrative texts recommended by Cult of Pedagogy followers on Twitter would be a good place to browse for titles that might be right for your students. Keep in mind that we have not read most of these stories, so be sure to read them first before adopting them for classroom use.

Step 5: Story Mapping

At this point, students will need to decide what they are going to write about. If they are stuck for a topic, have them just pick something they can write about, even if it’s not the most captivating story in the world. A skilled writer could tell a great story about deciding what to have for lunch. If they are using the skills of narrative writing, the topic isn’t as important as the execution.

Have students complete a basic story arc for their chosen topic using a diagram like the one below. This will help them make sure that they actually have a story to tell, with an identifiable problem, a sequence of events that build to a climax, and some kind of resolution, where something is different by the end. Again, if you are writing with your students, this would be an important step to model for them with your own story-in-progress.

Step 6: Quick Drafts

Now, have students get their chosen story down on paper as quickly as possible: This could be basically a long paragraph that would read almost like a summary, but it would contain all the major parts of the story. Model this step with your own story, so they can see that you are not shooting for perfection in any way. What you want is a working draft, a starting point, something to build on for later, rather than a blank page (or screen) to stare at.

Step 7: Plan the Pacing

Now that the story has been born in raw form, students can begin to shape it. This would be a good time for a lesson on pacing, where students look at how writers expand some moments to create drama and shrink other moments so that the story doesn’t drag. Creating a diagram like the one below forces a writer to decide how much space to devote to all of the events in the story.

Step 8: Long Drafts

With a good plan in hand, students can now slow down and write a proper draft, expanding the sections of their story that they plan to really draw out and adding in more of the details that they left out in the quick draft.

Step 9: Workshop

Once students have a decent rough draft—something that has a basic beginning, middle, and end, with some discernible rising action, a climax of some kind, and a resolution, you’re ready to shift into full-on workshop mode. I would do this for at least a week: Start class with a short mini-lesson on some aspect of narrative writing craft, then give students the rest of the period to write, conference with you, and collaborate with their peers. During that time, they should focus some of their attention on applying the skill they learned in the mini-lesson to their drafts, so they will improve a little bit every day.

Topics for mini-lessons can include:

• How to weave exposition into your story so you don’t give readers an “information dump”
• How to carefully select dialogue to create good scenes, rather than quoting everything in a conversation
• How to punctuate and format dialogue so that it imitates the natural flow of a conversation
• How to describe things using sensory details and figurative language; also,  what  to describe…students too often give lots of irrelevant detail
• How to choose precise nouns and vivid verbs, use a variety of sentence lengths and structures, and add transitional words, phrases, and features to help the reader follow along
• How to start, end, and title a story

Step 10: Final Revisions and Edits

As the unit nears its end, students should be shifting away from revision , in which they alter the content of a piece, toward editing , where they make smaller changes to the mechanics of the writing. Make sure students understand the difference between the two: They should not be correcting each other’s spelling and punctuation in the early stages of this process, when the focus should be on shaping a better story.

One of the most effective strategies for revision and editing is to have students read their stories out loud. In the early stages, this will reveal places where information is missing or things get confusing. Later, more read-alouds will help them immediately find missing words, unintentional repetitions, and sentences that just “sound weird.” So get your students to read their work out loud frequently. It also helps to print stories on paper: For some reason, seeing the words in print helps us notice things we didn’t see on the screen.

To get the most from peer review, where students read and comment on each other’s work, more modeling from you is essential: Pull up a sample piece of writing and show students how to give specific feedback that helps, rather than simply writing “good detail” or “needs more detail,” the two comments I saw exchanged most often on students’ peer-reviewed papers.

Step 11: Final Copies and Publication

Once revision and peer review are done, students will hand in their final copies. If you don’t want to get stuck with 100-plus papers to grade, consider using Catlin Tucker’s station rotation model , which keeps all the grading in class. And when you do return stories with your own feedback, try using Kristy Louden’s delayed grade strategy , where students don’t see their final grade until they have read your written feedback.

Beyond the standard hand-in-for-a-grade, consider other ways to have students publish their stories. Here are some options:

• Stories could be published as individual pages on a collaborative website or blog.
• Students could create illustrated e-books out of their stories.
• Students could create a slideshow to accompany their stories and record them as digital storytelling videos. This could be done with a tool like Screencastify or Screencast-O-Matic .

So this is what worked for me. If you’ve struggled to get good stories from your students, try some or all of these techniques next time. I think you’ll find that all of your students have some pretty interesting stories to tell. Helping them tell their stories well is a gift that will serve them for many years after they leave your classroom. ♦

Want this unit ready-made?

If you’re a writing teacher in grades 7-12 and you’d like a classroom-ready unit like the one described above, including slideshow mini-lessons on 14 areas of narrative craft, a sample narrative piece, editable rubrics, and other supplemental materials to guide students through every stage of the process, take a look at my Narrative Writing unit . Just click on the image below and you’ll be taken to a page where you can read more and see a detailed preview of what’s included.

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Categories: Instruction , Podcast

Tags: English language arts , Grades 6-8 , Grades 9-12 , teaching strategies

52 Comments

Wow, this is a wonderful guide! If my English teachers had taught this way, I’m sure I would have enjoyed narrative writing instead of dreading it. I’ll be able to use many of these suggestions when writing my blog! BrP

Lst year I was so discouraged because the short stories looked like the quick drafts described in this article. I thought I had totally failed until I read this and realized I did not fai,l I just needed to complete the process. Thank you!

I feel like you jumped in my head and connected my thoughts. I appreciate the time you took to stop and look closely at form. I really believe that student-writers should see all dimensions of narrative writing and be able to live in whichever style and voice they want for their work.

Can’t thank you enough for this. So well curated that one can just follow it blindly and ace at teaching it. Thanks again!

Great post! I especially liked your comments about reminding kids about the power of storytelling. My favourite podcasts and posts from you are always about how to do things in the classroom and I appreciate the research you do.

On a side note, the ice breakers are really handy. My kids know each other really well (rural community), and can tune out pretty quickly if there is nothing new to learn about their peers, but they like the games (and can remember where we stopped last time weeks later). I’ve started changing them up with ‘life questions’, so the editable version is great!

I love writing with my students and loved this podcast! A fun extension to this narrative is to challenge students to write another story about the same event, but use the perspective of another “character” from the story. Books like Wonder (R.J. Palacio) and Wanderer (Sharon Creech) can model the concept for students.

Thank you for your great efforts to reveal the practical writing strategies in layered details. As English is not my first language, I need listen to your podcast and read the text repeatedly so to fully understand. It’s worthy of the time for some great post like yours. I love sharing so I send the link to my English practice group that it can benefit more. I hope I could be able to give you some feedback later on.

Thank you for helping me get to know better especially the techniques in writing narrative text. Im an English teacher for 5years but have little knowledge on writing. I hope you could feature techniques in writing news and fearute story. God bless and more power!

Thank you for this! I am very interested in teaching a unit on personal narrative and this was an extremely helpful breakdown. As a current student teacher I am still unsure how to approach breaking down the structures of different genres of writing in a way that is helpful for me students but not too restrictive. The story mapping tools you provided really allowed me to think about this in a new way. Writing is such a powerful way to experience the world and more than anything I want my students to realize its power. Stories are how we make sense of the world and as an English teacher I feel obligated to give my students access to this particular skill.

The power of story is unfathomable. There’s this NGO in India doing some great work in harnessing the power of storytelling and plots to brighten children’s lives and enlighten them with true knowledge. Check out Katha India here: http://bit.ly/KathaIndia

Thank you so much for this. I did not go to college to become a writing professor, but due to restructuring in my department, I indeed am! This is a wonderful guide that I will use when teaching the narrative essay. I wonder if you have a similar guide for other modes such as descriptive, process, argument, etc.?

Hey Melanie, Jenn does have another guide on writing! Check out A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Argumentative Writing .

Hi, I am also wondering if there is a similar guide for descriptive writing in particular?

Hey Melanie, unfortunately Jenn doesn’t currently have a guide for descriptive writing. She’s always working on projects though, so she may get around to writing a unit like this in the future. You can always check her Teachers Pay Teachers page for an up-to-date list of materials she has available. Thanks!

I want to write about the new character in my area

That’s great! Let us know if you need any supports during your writing process!

I absolutely adore this unit plan. I teach freshmen English at a low-income high school and wanted to find something to help my students find their voice. It is not often that I borrow material, but I borrowed and adapted all of it in the order that it is presented! It is cohesive, understandable, and fun. Thank you!!

So glad to hear this, Nicole!

Thanks sharing this post. My students often get confused between personal narratives and short stories. Whenever I ask them to write a short story, she share their own experiences and add a bit of fiction in it to make it interesting.

Thank you! My students have loved this so far. I do have a question as to where the “Frog” story mentioned in Step 4 is. I could really use it! Thanks again.

This is great to hear, Emily! In Step 4, Jenn mentions that she wrote the “Frog” story for her narrative writing unit . Just scroll down the bottom of the post and you’ll see a link to the unit.

I also cannot find the link to the short story “Frog”– any chance someone can send it or we can repost it?

This story was written for Jenn’s narrative writing unit. You can find a link to this unit in Step 4 or at the bottom of the article. Hope this helps.

I cannot find the frog story mentioned. Could you please send the link.? Thank you

Hi Michelle,

The Frog story was written for Jenn’s narrative writing unit. There’s a link to this unit in Step 4 and at the bottom of the article.

Debbie- thanks for you reply… but there is no link to the story in step 4 or at the bottom of the page….

Hey Shawn, the frog story is part of Jenn’s narrative writing unit, which is available on her Teachers Pay Teachers site. The link Debbie is referring to at the bottom of this post will take you to her narrative writing unit and you would have to purchase that to gain access to the frog story. I hope this clears things up.

Thank you so much for this resource! I’m a high school English teacher, and am currently teaching creative writing for the first time. I really do value your blog, podcast, and other resources, so I’m excited to use this unit. I’m a cyber school teacher, so clear, organized layout is important; and I spend a lot of time making sure my content is visually accessible for my students to process. Thanks for creating resources that are easy for us teachers to process and use.

Do you have a lesson for Informative writing?

Hey Cari, Jenn has another unit on argumentative writing , but doesn’t have one yet on informative writing. She may develop one in the future so check back in sometime.

I had the same question. Informational writing is so difficult to have a good strong unit in when you have so many different text structures to meet and need text-dependent writing tasks.

Creating an informational writing unit is still on Jenn’s long list of projects to get to, but in the meantime, if you haven’t already, check out When We All Teach Text Structures, Everyone Wins . It might help you out!

This is a great lesson! It would be helpful to see a finished draft of the frog narrative arc. Students’ greatest challenge is transferring their ideas from the planner to a full draft. To see a full sample of how this arc was transformed into a complete narrative draft would be a powerful learning tool.

Hi Stacey! Jenn goes into more depth with the “Frog” lesson in her narrative writing unit – this is where you can find a sample of what a completed story arc might look. Also included is a draft of the narrative. If interested in checking out the unit and seeing a preview, just scroll down to the bottom of the post and click on the image. Hope this helps!

Helped me learn for an entrance exam thanks very much

Is the narrative writing lesson you talk about in https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/narrative-writing/

Also doable for elementary students you think, and if to what levels?

Love your work, Sincerely, Zanyar

Hey Zanyar,

It’s possible the unit would work with 4th and 5th graders, but Jenn definitely wouldn’t recommend going any younger. The main reason for this is that some of the mini-lessons in the unit could be challenging for students who are still concrete thinkers. You’d likely need to do some adjusting and scaffolding which could extend the unit beyond the 3 weeks. Having said that, I taught 1st grade and found the steps of the writing process, as described in the post, to be very similar. Of course learning targets/standards were different, but the process itself can be applied to any grade level (modeling writing, using mentor texts to study how stories work, planning the structure of the story, drafting, elaborating, etc.) Hope this helps!

This has made my life so much easier. After teaching in different schools systems, from the American, to British to IB, one needs to identify the anchor standards and concepts, that are common between all these systems, to build well balanced thematic units. Just reading these steps gave me the guidance I needed to satisfy both the conceptual framework the schools ask for and the standards-based practice. Thank you Thank you.

Would this work for teaching a first grader about narrative writing? I am also looking for a great book to use as a model for narrative writing. Veggie Monster is being used by his teacher and he isn’t connecting with this book in the least bit, so it isn’t having a positive impact. My fear is he will associate this with writing and I don’t want a negative association connected to such a beautiful process and experience. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thank you for any information you can provide!

Although I think the materials in the actual narrative writing unit are really too advanced for a first grader, the general process that’s described in the blog post can still work really well.

I’m sorry your child isn’t connecting with The Night of the Veggie Monster. Try to keep in mind that the main reason this is used as a mentor text is because it models how a small moment story can be told in a big way. It’s filled with all kinds of wonderful text features that impact the meaning of the story – dialogue, description, bold text, speech bubbles, changes in text size, ellipses, zoomed in images, text placement, text shape, etc. All of these things will become mini-lessons throughout the unit. But there are lots of other wonderful mentor texts that your child might enjoy. My suggestion for an early writer, is to look for a small moment text, similar in structure, that zooms in on a problem that a first grader can relate to. In addition to the mentor texts that I found in this article , you might also want to check out Knuffle Bunny, Kitten’s First Full Moon, When Sophie Gets Angry Really Really Angry, and Whistle for Willie. Hope this helps!

I saw this on Pinterest the other day while searching for examples of narritives units/lessons. I clicked on it because I always click on C.o.P stuff 🙂 And I wasn’t disapointed. I was intrigued by the connection of narratives to humanity–even if a student doesn’t identify as a writer, he/she certainly is human, right? I really liked this. THIS clicked with me.

A few days after I read the P.o.C post, I ventured on to YouTube for more ideas to help guide me with my 8th graders’ narrative writing this coming spring. And there was a TEDx video titled, “The Power of Personal Narrative” by J. Christan Jensen. I immediately remembered the line from the article above that associated storytelling with “power” and how it sets humans apart and if introduced and taught as such, it can be “extraordinary.”

I watched the video and to the suprise of my expectations, it was FANTASTIC. Between Jennifer’s post and the TEDx video ignited within me some major motivation and excitement to begin this unit.

Thanks for sharing this with us! So glad that Jenn’s post paired with another text gave you some motivation and excitement. I’ll be sure to pass this on to Jenn!

Thank you very much for this really helpful post! I really love the idea of helping our students understand that storytelling is powerful and then go on to teach them how to harness that power. That is the essence of teaching literature or writing at any level. However, I’m a little worried about telling students that whether a piece of writing is fact or fiction does not matter. It in fact matters a lot precisely because storytelling is powerful. Narratives can shape people’s views and get their emotions involved which would, in turn, motivate them to act on a certain matter, whether for good or for bad. A fictional narrative that is passed as factual could cause a lot of damage in the real world. I believe we should. I can see how helping students focus on writing the story rather than the truth of it all could help refine the needed skills without distractions. Nevertheless, would it not be prudent to teach our students to not just harness the power of storytelling but refrain from misusing it by pushing false narratives as factual? It is true that in reality, memoirs pass as factual while novels do as fictional while the opposite may be true for both cases. I am not too worried about novels passing as fictional. On the other hand, fictional narratives masquerading as factual are disconcerting and part of a phenomenon that needs to be fought against, not enhanced or condoned in education. This is especially true because memoirs are often used by powerful people to write/re-write history. I would really like to hear your opinion on this. Thanks a lot for a great post and a lot of helpful resources!

Thank you so much for this. Jenn and I had a chance to chat and we can see where you’re coming from. Jenn never meant to suggest that a person should pass off a piece of fictional writing as a true story. Good stories can be true, completely fictional, or based on a true story that’s mixed with some fiction – that part doesn’t really matter. However, what does matter is how a student labels their story. We think that could have been stated more clearly in the post , so Jenn decided to add a bit about this at the end of the 3rd paragraph in the section “A Note About Form: Personal Narrative or Short Story?” Thanks again for bringing this to our attention!

You have no idea how much your page has helped me in so many ways. I am currently in my teaching credential program and there are times that I feel lost due to a lack of experience in the classroom. I’m so glad I came across your page! Thank you for sharing!

Thanks so much for letting us know-this means a whole lot!

No, we’re sorry. Jenn actually gets this question fairly often. It’s something she considered doing at one point, but because she has so many other projects she’s working on, she’s just not gotten to it.

I couldn’t find the story

Hi, Duraiya. The “Frog” story is part of Jenn’s narrative writing unit, which is available on her Teachers Pay Teachers site. The link at the bottom of this post will take you to her narrative writing unit, which you can purchase to gain access to the story. I hope this helps!

I am using this step-by-step plan to help me teach personal narrative story writing. I wanted to show the Coca-Cola story, but the link says the video is not available. Do you have a new link or can you tell me the name of the story so I can find it?

Thank you for putting this together.

Hi Corri, sorry about that. The Coca-Cola commercial disappeared, so Jenn just updated the post with links to two videos with good stories. Hope this helps!

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How to Teach Narrative Writing

Last Updated: July 6, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 32,372 times.

Narrative writing is fun to teach, but it can also be a challenge! Whether you need to teach college or grade school students, there are lots of great options for lessons. Start by getting your students familiar with the genre, then use in-class activities to help them practice creating their own narratives. Once your students understand how narratives work, assign a narrative essay for students to demonstrate and hone their skills.

Introducing the Genre

• A specific point-of-view on the events of the story
• Vivid details that incorporate all 5 senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste)
• A reflection on what the experience meant

• Have your students read narrative essays, such as "My Indian Education" by Sherman Alexie, "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell, "Learning to Read" by Malcolm X, or "Fish Cheeks" by Amy Tan.
• Show your students a movie, such as Moana or Frozen and then plot out the structure of the story with your students.
• Have your students listen to a podcast or radio segment that features a short narrative, such as the Modern Love podcast or NPR's "This I Believe" series.

If you want to show a film but you are short on time, show a short film or sketch comedy clip , such as something from a channel you like on Youtube. Choose something that will grab your students' attention!

• Who are the characters in this story? What are they like? How can you tell?
• Who is telling the story?
• What happens to the characters?
• How do they work towards a solution to the problem?
• Where and when does the story take place?
• What is the mood of the story?

• For example, start by looking at the action and characters in the introduction. How does the author introduce the story? The characters?
• Then, move to the body paragraphs to identify how the story develops. What happens? Who does it happen to? How do the characters respond?
• Finish your map by looking at the conclusion to the story. How is the conflict resolved? What effect does this resolution have on the characters in the story?

Using In-Class Activities

• For example, you might start the story by saying “Once,” which another student might follow with “upon,” another with “a,” and another with “time,” and so on.
• You might also give the story more structure by giving your students a model to follow. For example, you might require them to follow a format, such as this one: "The-adjective-noun-adverb-verb-the-adjective-noun." Post the format where all of the students can follow along as they tell their story.
• To build a story sentence by sentence, you might start with “Once upon a time, there was a princess named Jezebel.” And then the next student might add, “She was betrothed to a foreign prince, but she did not want to get married.” And another might add, “One her wedding day, she fled the country.”

• Allow each student about 7 to 10 minutes to write their paragraph.
• Return the stories to the student who wrote the opening paragraph so they can see how other people continued their story.
• Ask students to share how their story progressed after they passed it to their neighbor.

• For example, if the author of a story writes, “Sally was so angry,” then they are telling. However, the author would be showing by writing, “Sally slammed the car door shut and stomped off towards her house. Before she went inside, she turned, shot me a furious look, and shouted, 'I never want to see you again!'”
• The first example tells readers that Sally is angry, while the second example shows readers that Sally is angry using her actions and words.
• A great way to practice this concept is to give students a plot point or have them create their own. Then, have the students work on showing the plot point using only dialogue.

• What does the character look like? Hair/eye/skin color? Height/weight/age? Clothing? Other distinguishing features?
• What mannerisms does the person have? Any nervous ticks? How does their voice sound?
• What is their personality like? Is the person an optimist or pessimist?
• What are their likes/dislikes? Hobbies? Profession?

• The diner was empty, except for me, the waitress, the cook, and a lone gunman.
• I was lost in a strange city with no money, no phone, and no way to contact anyone.
• The creature disappeared as suddenly and unexpectedly as it had arrived.

• Invite students to share what happened on their islands at the end of the 5 days.
• Display the island drawings and descriptions on the wall of your classroom.

Make it your goal to do 1 activity in class each day ! This will help to ensure that your students are getting lots of exposure to what a narrative is and how it works before they write their own narratives.

Assigning a Narrative Essay

• Tell your students if you are using a theme or focus. For example, if you want students to write their narrative on an experience with reading or writing, then you might provide examples, such as the first novel they read and fell in love with, or the time they had to totally rewrite a paper for an English class.
• Also, include details in the rubric on the required length of the essay, special features you expect to see, and any formatting requirements.

• Make sure to provide students with feedback on their pre-write activities. Encourage them on what sounds like it has the most potential and steer them away from topics that seem too broad or that would not hold up well as narratives.
• For example, if a student submits a freewrite in which they discuss wanting to write about all of the English teachers they have ever had, this would be too broad and you would want to encourage them to narrow their topic, such as by writing about 1 teacher only.

• For example, if the paper is due on April 1st, then students ought to start drafting at least 1 week in advance, or sooner if possible. This will help to ensure that they will have plenty of time to revise their work.

• Does the story seem complete? What else could be added?
• Is the topic too narrow or too broad? Does the paper maintain its focus or is it disorganized?
• Are the introduction and conclusion effective? How might they be improved?

For a creative way to showcase your students' stories, have them to transform their essays into a different format and share it with the class! For example, your students could turn their essay into a podcast, short film, or drawing.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/essay_writing/narrative_essays.html
• ↑ https://www.edutopia.org/article/systematic-approach-teaching-narrative-writing/
• ↑ https://intensiveintervention.org/sites/default/files/Narrative-Text-Structures-508.pdf
• ↑ https://lewisu.edu/writingcenter/pdf/narrative-elements-1.pdf
• ↑ https://cdn.ncte.org/nctefiles/resources/books/sample/00465chap07.pdf
• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/narrative-writing/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/revising-drafts/

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A Systematic Approach to Teaching Narrative Writing

Clear strategies for each stage of the writing process help students improve their writing and serve as effective readers for their peers.

“I’ll never forget the colors,” I often read in student reflections.

As a middle school language arts teacher, I’ve developed a systematic approach to writing that helps students improve their storytelling skills. It includes strategies for writing in a variety of genres, such as personal narrative, memoir, and creative nonfiction. And in the revision stage I teach a color-coded approach to analyzing details that helps students see clearly what kinds of details they’ve used—and which they haven’t. Apparently this approach really sticks with my students.

When these strategies are used together, they help students improve their writing skills while also fostering relationships among themselves as they act as sounding boards for each other’s work.

Prewriting Q&A as a Source of New Ideas

Prewriting is an essential part of the writing process. If ideas aren’t flowing, however, some students may become stalled, with a lack of ideas acting as a roadblock for them. To get the ball rolling, I pair students together for prewriting conversations.

To begin, I share one of my own stories to demonstrate the art of storytelling. Next, I give students the opportunity to discuss their own story ideas with a partner. Then, as I walk around listening to their conversations, I’ll pause every now and then and ask a few students whose ideas piqued my interest to share their story ideas aloud with the entire group.

Next, I’ll demonstrate asking a series of questions to the student who is sharing aloud, explaining to the class that this strategy can help them dive deeper as writers. Students will continue their discussions in pairs, eliciting as many details as possible from the storyteller through questioning.

They might ask:

• “How was the narrator feeling at that moment?”
• “What would happen if…”
• “Can you help me picture the character?”

This type of thoughtful questioning helps students visualize the scene more vividly and replaces initial writing jitters with fun and flexibility.

They jot down their ideas with words, pictures, bullets, or anything else that helps them solidify the memories from their spoken stories now that they are ready to prewrite independently.

To See What You’re Writing, Act It Out

Instead of summarizing a whole story from beginning to end, I want students to create a writing piece based on a brief period that includes vivid detail. I’ve found that having students act out a scene helps them grasp this concept. 

First, I’ll have students read aloud a few pages from our class book. Then, in small groups, they’ll act out the scene. “Now that you’ve acted it out, how long do you think this moment would have taken in real life?” I’ll ask. There will be a friendly debate. In the end, students will realize that the scene was a moment of time told with meaningful details, whether they said it took 30 seconds or 10 minutes.

Students then deconstruct the scene they just acted out by creating a timeline of key character actions. For example, using pages 9–10 of The Glass Castle , by Jeannette Walls, the scene breakdown might look like this:

• At age 3, Jeannette is standing on a chair cooking hot dogs in the kitchenette and feeding them to her dog.
• Her dress catches on fire, sending flames up her body.
• Jeannette’s mom, painting in the next room, hears her scream and enters the kitchen.
• Mom uses an army surplus blanket to put the fire out.
• Mom, Jeannette, and brother Brian run to the neighbor’s house to get help.
• The neighbor drops her laundry she was hanging on the line and races to take them to the hospital, saying nothing.

Students will then work independently to apply the same strategy to their own ideas, focusing on showing rather than telling the entire story. Students will share their lists with their groups and then act out each other’s ideas.

The following conversation suggestions help students clarify and solidify their ideas.

Beginning, ending, and timing: Where does the heart of this moment start? Where does it end? When one student describes a moment that feels excessively long, the rest of the group suggests methods to shorten it. If a student has a moment that is too short, the group helps to extend it.

Characters: What is each character doing? What’s their motivation? What do they look like? How are they acting?

Setting: Where and when is this taking place? What’s going on around your characters?

Dialogue: What’s being said, how, and by whom?

Internal thinking: What are the characters thinking?

Students are now ready to move on to independent writing and complete a full draft.

Color-Coding Writing as a Detail-Oriented Strategy

Following the drafting phase, I teach students a variety of revising techniques. Every day I introduce a new one—and they’re color-coded to make it easier for students to distinguish between them. We might, for example, focus on character details one day. First, students will find vivid character descriptions they love from the read-aloud or their own independent reading. Then, they’ll add their own character descriptions to their writing, highlighting them in a particular color.

I encourage students to incorporate each color throughout their drafts. If character details are represented by blue, for example, blue highlighting should be used in the beginning, middle, and end of their pieces. Other color-coded strategies include setting details, figurative language, sensory details, dialogue, and internal thinking.

The use of assorted colors allows students to clearly see areas that have been enriched with vivid details and areas that have not. This visual strategy benefits learners of all levels by instilling confidence and a sense of accomplishment as rainbows of color emerge throughout their work.

This color-coding approach also aids in peer editing and teacher conferencing by encouraging meaningful conversations like this: “I see you’ve developed thoughtfully crafted blues in the beginning to describe the Mom character. How can you assist readers in picturing and getting to know your other characters? How can you incorporate more blues later to describe them?”

To showcase daily accomplishments, students add their favorite highlighted lines to the classroom bulletin boards. While students could easily copy and paste their examples into a shared class Google Doc, I’ve found that they’re more engaged when there’s movement and camaraderie, and they like having their words physically present in the classroom.

Recently I taped a piece of bulletin board paper for students to write on in the front of the classroom and another in the back. A student was waiting patiently for others to finish at the front. I encouraged him to go write his favorite line in the back since there was no wait and it offered more space to write.

“No thanks,” he chirped. “I want everyone to see mine when they walk into the room.”

How to Teach Narrative Writing: A Step-by-Step Approach

Narrative writing is just another word for storytelling. The good news is students tell stories all the time—they just don’t write them down. Ironically, the moment we ask students to put those stories into writing, they freeze. Suddenly, they don’t know what to write about or where the heck to start.

Knowing how to teach narrative writing is the key to avoiding “brain freezes” and blank pages. But, before we can dive into the how , we need to understand the what .

What is Narrative Writing?

Narrative writing tells a real or fictional story using a logical sequence of events, establishing a beginning, middle, and end. In most pieces of narrative writing, a story develops as a character faces a conflict that is resolved in the end, revealing a universal lesson that has been learned. This lesson is often a major revealing point for the author’s message and the overarching story’s theme.

Unlike the academic essays students are used to writing, narrative stories rely heavily on creative elements such as vivid descriptions, figurative language, point of view, and dialogue. After all, the purpose of this style of writing is to detail experience, reveal perspective, elicit emotion, encourage reflection, or express a deeper meaning. Narrative writing can be used to entertain, educate, inspire, or connect with an audience.

While students may struggle with narrative writing at first, once they get the hang of it they are quick to embrace the opportunity to use their imagination and creativity.

What are the Five Elements of Narrative Writing?

To help students separate narrative writing from the other writing genres they’ve learned, it’s important they understand the five main elements of the genre:

• Character(s)

These five elements work together to create a well-structured narrative story.

Why Teach Narrative Writing?

Narrative writing equips students with the power of storytelling. Teaching narrative writing is about more than sharing the tools needed to enjoy, analyze, or tell a good story. It’s more than meeting standards and following the curriculum.

When we teach students the power of a well-told story, we are teaching them how stories can bring us together or tear us apart. How they can shift perspectives, establish connections, and build relationships. That stories have the power to inspire others, elicit emotions, and spark change. 

Once we help students understand the power of telling stories, we can move on to teaching them how to tell these stories through writing.

How to Teach Narrative Writing: A Step-By-Step Approach 

Telling a story isn’t a new concept to students. However, doing it well and writing it down is a whole different ball game. With the right steps, mentor texts, and activities, students can master narrative writing in no time. (Okay, in some cases, it might take a little bit of time and practice, but they’ll get there.) Want to guide your students toward storytelling success? Follow my step-by-step approach to planning your next narrative writing unit:

1. Get Students Talking (or Thinking)

Don’t jump into asking students to write a full-blown narrative story. Instead, get them to talk about stories first. Start by giving them simple prompts to help pull out stories from their own lives. For example, ask them to think about a time when they were embarrassed or had the best birthday ever. Ask them about a time they overcame a fear or stood up for something they believed in. While not all narrative writing is personal , it’s always useful to start with something students know.

Bell ringer activities like a question of the day or quick writes are a great way to get students thinking about the bones of narrative writing without even realizing it. 

2. Focus on Story Structure  

Any narrative writing unit should include a formal study of story structure. Students must understand the essential elements of a plot and basic story elements— and how they all work together to tell a compelling and cohesive story.

However, understanding story structure goes beyond identifying a classic story arc, including exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Before students attempt to plan and write their own piece of narrative writing, they must also understand the following:

• Stories should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
• Writers manipulate time (and pacing) to control a story.
• Point of view impacts the reader’s experience.
• Setting provides readers with context regarding the time and place.
• Conflict and characters drive a plot forward—and make the story interesting.
• Conflict is an opportunity for a character to learn a lesson or undergo transformation.
• A theme or message reveals what a narrative story is really about.

3. Read Strong Mentor Texts

Now it’s time to take some time to read and unpack strong mentor texts. Short stories and even picture books make for perfect narrative writing mentor texts. Spend time analyzing and discussing the story structures of each text to give students more context of the elements you’ve been teaching up to this point. 

Have students fill out a classic plot diagram as they identify and analyze a story’s narrative arc. And don’t stop at the plot. Guide students through activities and discussions to unpack and understand the other essential elements of a mentor text’s story structure, like theme, conflict, and character, too.

4. Brainstorm ideas

Whether you’re asking students to write personal narratives or create fictional stories, getting started is always the hardest part.Sentence starters and writing prompts are great ways to get students thinking. Having students share their ideas with each other is another great way to spark inspiration throughout the classroom. Use this brainstorming stage as an opportunity to check in with students and help those who are struggling to come up with any “good” ideas.

Without a topic or idea that excites them, students will struggle through the rest of the writing process. However, students often get caught up in thinking they need to have some big elaborate story. That’s when I remind them that even small moments and simple stories can have a big impact on a reader.

5. Map It Out

Ideas are great and all, but story maps are vital to ensuring there is actually a story to tell. Before they start panicking at this phase, remind them that they do not have to have the whole story figured out just yet. Instead, this step acts more as an outline of their general plot points and overarching ideas. Have them map out the elements of their story including the conflict, main sequence of events, climax, and resolution.

Story maps are super useful because students can refer back to them throughout the writing process to keep their stories on track. However, I like to remind students that they may decide to adjust their plan as they write—and that’s okay too.

6. Complete a Fast Draft

I know—first drafts can be really painful. There is a lot of staring at blank papers and claiming “I don’t know what to write.” Oftentimes, this is because students are so worried about having everything figured out before they start writing. This is where fast drafts come in handy.

Rather than asking students to flesh out a traditional first draft of their narrative piece, have them write their story down as quickly as possible. However, they do want to touch upon all major elements from their story map. The draft can be messy or some details may be missing, and that’s totally okay at this stage. This step is all about progress, not perfection. This fast draft will serve as a starting point that students can build upon.

7. Start the Narrative Writing Workshop

After students complete a fast draft, it’s time to move into the writer’s workshop. A narrative writing workshop includes writing, check-ins, feedback, and mini-lessons. These workshop days are some of the most essential days of the unit. Start each workshop day with a mini-lesson focusing on a specific element of narrative writing craft. Then, give students time to implant what they’ve learned with their draft, checking in and providing feedback as they work. Over time, that fast draft will start to turn into a well-developed story.

Wondering what to teach during a narrative writing unit? The following topics make for great narrative writing mini-lessons or workshop stations:

• Descriptive writing (Show vs. Tell)
• Figurative language
• Word choice
• Transitions
• Tone and mood
• Strong endings
• Engaging hooks

8. Review, Revise, Edit. (Repeat.)

Students love to take the one-and-done approach to writing. That’s why I like to include time for in-class revisions during a narrative writing unit.  Guide students through both self and peer revisions. Giving students clear guidelines and expectations for revisions is vital to avoid wasting time.

I like to work through revisions in stages, focusing on one element of revision at a time.  This makes it easier for students to provide valuable and pointed feedback to each other or note areas for improvement in their own writing. For example, I may have students circle any weak verbs or descriptions before having them add more vivid verbs or details. Only then can they move on to the next revision task focusing on dialogue tags or transitions. Additionally, I always save general writing mechanics for last. This allows students to focus on bettering their overall story before honing in on more technical edits. 

Read this post to learn more about making the most out of peer reviews.

9. Celebrate Student Stories

Yay! Your students have completed their pieces of narrative writing. Students worked too hard to have their work go right into a “waiting to be graded” pile. Give them an opportunity to share their stories with each other by hosting an author reading where they read excerpts of their stories to the class. Alternatively, students can design a “story poster” or complete a one-pager project to display around the classroom.

The Bottom Line?

No one likes reading a boring story. However, it’s even worse having to grade one.

Luckily, when students are engaged in a well-planned narrative writing unit, it can be a lot of fun for everyone. However, if your students aren’t buying in or simply aren’t following along, you’ll likely spend a lot of time reading really bad stories. I hope this post helps you achieve the former (and avoid the latter) by giving you a clear and well-structured plan for how to teach narrative writing. 

I encourage you to take my approach to teaching narrative writing and make it your own, making adjustments to best meet the needs of your students. And if this isn’t your first narrative writing rodeo and you have any fun ideas for mini-lessons or narrative writing activities, I’d love to hear them! Share them in the comments below.

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7 Great Narrative Lesson Plans Students and Teachers Love

How to Master Narrative Writing in a Single Week

Mastering narrative writing in one week is a big ask. A very BIG ask! But you can teach the core elements of how to craft a well-told tale in this tight timeframe. Mastery will come through diligent practice on the part of the student and thoughtful feedback on the teacher’s part.

How do you teach students narratives?

In this article, we’ll take a look at how you can take your students from zero to hero, in narrative writing terms, in just one lesson per day during the school week and a little extra effort over the weekend.

 Come the following Monday morning, and your desk should be positively heaving under the weight of your students’ freshly composed masterpieces.

 Though we’re in the game of narrative fiction here, let’s try to bring our aspirations into the realm of the possible. We won’t get a novel out of our students in a mere seven days, not without working their fingers and to the bone. However, the short story format will perfectly serve our ambitions.

 So, let’s get started by exploring these five narrative lesson plans – By Zeus’s breath! We’ve still set ourselves a task of Herculean proportions!

THE STORY TELLERS BUNDLE OF TEACHING RESOURCES

A MASSIVE COLLECTION of resources for narratives and story writing in the classroom covering all elements of crafting amazing stories. MONTHS WORTH OF WRITING LESSONS AND RESOURCES, including:

Lesson 1: Generate One Good Story Idea

 There’s a lot of ground to cover, so you’ll need to get your students off to an energetic start if they’re to reach the finish line of a completed story by the end of the week.

 They’ll need to come up with an idea for a story so engaging that they’ll be chomping at the bit to get their pens galloping over the page.

 Try one of these two activities to kickstart your students’ creativity:

• Spin Story Gold from Your Spam

Open up your email and go into your Spam folder. This is a repository of some of the highest-flying fiction in the modern age. It’s peopled with fanciful characters from far-flung lands such as generous princes, dying businessmen searching for heirs, devious diplomats, not to mention desperate widows.

Cut and paste a few of these that are student-suitable, print them, and distribute the results to your class.

If your students can’t make a story from this raw material, you may already have a lost cause on your hands!

• What Ever Happened to So-and-So?

We’ve all had friends and acquaintances we’ve lost touch with over the years. This is true of our students too – young as they are!

Ask your students to think of someone they used to know. Maybe a classmate from kindergarten who went on to a different school, or a neighbor who moved to another city. Anyone they used to know, but since they have since lost contact with will do.

Now, ask them to imagine what happened to this person. What twists and turns have their life taken since you last saw them? Have they fallen into a life of crime or been abducted by aliens? Maybe they moved to a distant, exotic country and have started life anew. Encourage your students to let their imaginations run wild!

And, needless to say, have your students change their names to protect the innocent!

Once the students have come up with their rough story idea , it’s time to nail down some things in more detail and decide on a few crucial elements of their story.

Students must decide who the characters in their story are and what point of view they will tell the story. Will it be told from the first person POV, from the main character’s perspective, or from the omniscient third-person viewpoint? Can students sketch quick character bios to help them later in writing?

How about the setting? Where does the action take place? Will the story be static, or will locations change throughout the story?

Decisions, decisions!

The more questions students generate and answer, the easier tomorrow will be.

Failing all of that, if you need some creative juice, be sure to check out our writing prompts here .

STORY ELEMENTS FOR KIDS TUTORIAL VIDEO

Lesson 2: Outline

Day 2, and it’s time for students to outline their story. You can help this process significantly by giving your students a clear structure to follow. Graphic organizers offer an efficient way to lay things out easily to follow manner, helping students get their story written in an organized fashion.

But, whether they use graphic organizers or sketch their outline by hand, their story outline should contain the following elements (or similar variations):

●      Exposition – include characters & setting details from yesterday.

●      Conflict – this will usually emerge from the initial story idea.

●      Rising Action – a related series of events that escalates the story’s drama

●      Climax – the dramatic highpoint where the conflict comes to a head

●      Falling Action – the dramatic tension of the story decreases, and things move toward the conclusion.

●      Resolution – loose ends are tied up, and the story draws to a close.

Sometimes it can be beneficial to allow students to form small discussion groups to offer each other feedback and constructive criticism on their ideas.

Remind students that the more detail they go into in their outlines, the easier writing their stories will be.

Lesson: 3: Write the First Act

By now, your students have laid all the necessary groundwork, and the writing begins in earnest.

From our early school days, everyone knows that every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the basic three-act story structure, a structure that is ideal for your students to follow when writing their short stories .

The purpose of today’s lesson will be for your students to complete the first act of their story. A well-written first act will provide great momentum to help the students through the remaining two acts.

In the first act, students should aim to:

●      Introduce the important characters

●      Establish the setting and tone of their story

●      Reveal the story’s central conflict

●      Begin the process of ramping up the drama through the rising action.

If the purpose of the first act is to grab the reader’s attention so that they simply have to read to the end, then your students will need to employ a hook right from the first scene of their tale.

The purpose of this hook is to intrigue the reader and entice them to continue reading. But, not only does the hook need to gain the reader’s interest, it needs to serve the needs of the plot too.

A well-used hook should:

●      Introduce the main character

●      Give an insight into that character’s daily life

●      Show them dealing with some problem or conflict to reveal their character

Showing the main character in action dealing with a problem or conflict begins the story’s movement forward – even if the problem is minor.

Moving on from the hook, your students must work to keep the reader engaged throughout the story. There are two main ways to do this, either make the characters interesting or make the events compelling.

And, of course, there is a third option  – do both!

The Inciting Incident

The inciting incident is the event that sets the ball rolling in terms of the story’s action. Often, this is when something happens to flip the main character’s world upside-down or begin a process that causes the pattern of their daily life to be altered significantly, often forever.

Here are two common options to help students create an inciting incident:

●      The Deliberate Choice – Here, the main character makes a decision or a choice that sets all in motion the rest of the events of the story.

●      The Coincidence – The merging of time, place, and characters. Think ‘right person in the right place at the right time.’ You could, of course, substitute ‘wrong’ for ‘right’ here!

From here on out, a sequence of events unfolds, leading us into and through Act 2…

Lesson 4: Write Right to the End

By finishing the first act of their story, your students have pushed the ball to the top of the hill. All that remains is to tip it over the other side and let it roll all the way to the end.

Act 2 will see the dramatic tension build over a series of cause-and-effect events. This is very important for students to grasp. While writing about fictional characters in a fictional world, their stories must still contain a sense of logical consistency or they will frustrate their readers.

The seeds of these events should have been planted in Act 1, whether in the central external conflict or within the characters themselves.

The tension of the plot should build toward the story’s climactic scene in the third act.

Usually, the climax will see the two opposing sides of the conflict come together in some final way. This is where the main character succeeds in their goal or fails. It is where we witness them pushed to their limits.

This is the point all previous events have been working towards. In the aftermath of the climactic scene, the story draws to a close. Loose ends are tied up as the story reaches the resolution stage.

In the resolution, your students should address (usually briefly) the consequences of the events of the story. In a short story such as you will have your students write, the resolution will usually take place over a single scene.

In character-focused stories, the resolution can usually be summed up in a single question: How has the main character changed?  

A short story doesn’t usually have much of a build-up. It will usually start at the last possible moment of the action that will still allow the reader to make sense of what happens.

Likewise, the ending of the story should be tight and lean. The writer shouldn’t hang about, but should still leave the reader with a sense of continuation. That is, the reader should be left with the feeling that life will go in in this fictional world long after they have put the book (or pages!) down.

L esson 5: Edit

You might be beautiful. But, if you don’t brush your teeth occasionally, give your hair the odd brush, and put on some fresh clothes a few times a week, you’ll always be a bit haggard.

Stories are the same. They need tidying up. A little TLC before they make a guest appearance on The Homework Show .

Editing is where this TLC takes place.

Often, it’s difficult for students to gain enough perspective on their story to edit it effectively. It can be good practice to assign students an editing partner, where each student can provide feedback and suggestions to the other.

In this first edit, the main thing students should look out for is the story’s structure. Is it all of a whole? That is, does the story move through the story arc as outlined on the first and second days?

Some other things to watch out for include:

●      Is there a plausibility to the story? This is necessary even in the most fantastical of tales. Even if the events described are impossible, they must ‘ring’ true.

●      Are all the major narrative elements there? Are the characters drawn convincingly? Is there a hook, an inciting incident, a climax, a resolution, etc?

If these larger structural elements are all there, then students check the writing for clarity and revise where necessary.

Editing should be a merciless process; that’s why writers so often talk about ‘killing their babies’ when they discuss editing.

The golden rule of editing narrative writing is, if it doesn’t serve the story, then out it goes!

They can also check for the dreaded incidences of telling instead of showing. For example, characters should reveal themselves through their words and actions, rather than long, boring paragraph upon paragraph of exposition.

Students should make extensive notes for one another if they’re working with partners.

If they are doing their own editing, they can help to gain perspective on their work by reading it out loud.

Now, with notes gripped firmly in ink-stained hands it’s almost time for that final draft.

But first, a Day 6 interlude.

Lesson 6: Let That Potboiler Simmer!

Good writing is a slow-cooked stew of creativity and technical ability. It needs a full day for all the ingredients to steep in their own juices. And that’s what Day 6 is for – a much-needed respite from feverous scribbling.

Allowing the writing to rest for a day does two important things.

Firstly, it allows the student to replenish their energies in readiness for writing the final draft.

It also, more importantly, gives the students a little time to gain some perspective on their stories.

The mind works in unfathomable ways. Sometimes problems that arise in the writing of stories, and other creative text types , get solved by the subconscious while we sleep.

Creativity doesn’t answer to the blare of the factory horn. Students should give their imaginations some time to frolic and cavort.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING NARRATIVE WRITING

Teach your students to become skilled story writers with this HUGE   NARRATIVE & CREATIVE STORY WRITING UNIT . Offering a  COMPLETE SOLUTION  to teaching students how to craft  CREATIVE CHARACTERS, SUPERB SETTINGS, and PERFECT PLOTS .

Over 192 PAGES of materials, including:

Lesson 7: The Final Draft

Day 7! Where does the time go?

It’s time for your students to uncurl Day 5’s hurriedly scribbled notes and get working on that final draft.

Students should work through the suggestions, accepting and rejecting as they see fit. While this is predominantly a functional process, there is room for creativity in this problem-solving work.

This is the final run-through. So anything that doesn’t work should be put up against the wall and…well, you get the picture.

Once the story is in fine fettle structurally speaking, it’s time for a final proofread. Punctuation and spelling must be checked and corrected. All t ’s crossed and every I dotted.

With a final read-through, preferably aloud, each student should ceremoniously fold their masterpiece in quarters with great care and prepare to submit their work to the judgement of the Mighty Oracle of All That Is Educational at daybreak the following morn.

Failing that, they could just give it to their teacher in the morning!

There we have it, a rapid race through the twists and turns of mastering the narrative writing form. Just make sure you have set aside plenty of time to read a couple of dozen short stories come Monday night!

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32 Tips For Teaching Narrative Writing

Narrative writing plays a crucial role in developing a student’s storytelling abilities, fostering creativity, and enhancing expressive skills. However, teaching narrative writing can sometimes be challenging due to its subjective and artistic nature. Below are 32 strategies and tips for educators to effectively scaffold and nurture narrative writing capabilities in their students.

1.Brainstorm Ideas: Encourage students to brainstorm various topics, events, or personal experiences that could serve as the foundation for their stories.

2.Understand the Structure: Teach the fundamental structure of narrative writing, which typically includes an introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

3.Use Graphic Organizers: Utilize tools such as story maps or Venn diagrams to help students organize their thoughts and sequence events logically.

4.Study Examples: Have students read and discuss exemplary narrative texts so they can model their writing on effective storytelling techniques.

5.Focus on Sensory Details: Help students enrich their narratives by incorporating sensory descriptions that add depth to their settings and characterizations.

6.Practice Descriptive Writing: Regular exercises in descriptive writing can sharpen students’ ability to paint vivid pictures with words.

7.Develop Characters: Encourage the creation of compelling characters by asking students to outline backstories, motivations, and characteristics.

8.Explore Dialogue: Teach how to write realistic dialogue that moves the story forward and reveals character traits.

9.Emphasize Conflict: Discuss the importance of conflict within a story and how it drives the plot and engages readers.

10.Set the Tone: Work with students on establishing the mood or tone of a story, whether it’s humorous, suspenseful, or melancholic.

11.Use Mentor Texts: Provide students with mentor texts that exemplify strong narrative elements for them to analyze and learn from.

12.Peer Review Sessions: Conduct peer review workshops where students give constructive feedback on each other’s work.

13.Rewrite Real Life Events: Suggest rewriting real-life events with fictional twists as a fun way to practice narrative skills.

14.Personal Narratives: Assign personal narrative essays to help students draw from their own lives and experiences.

15.Implement Technology: Integrate digital storytelling tools or writing apps that can make the writing process more engaging.

16.Writing Prompts: Offer creative prompts or story starters to kindle imagination and overcome writer’s block.

17.Focus on Pacing: Teach how pacing affects the flow of a story and how to adjust it for maximum impact.

18.Create Storyboards: Use storyboarding techniques where students illustrate key scenes before writing them out.

19.Encourage Reading Aloud: Have students read their stories aloud either during drafting or upon completion to help refine voice and pacing.

20.Editing Checklists: Provide checklists that cover plot consistency, character development, grammar, punctuation, etc., for self-editing purposes.

21.Variety in Sentence Structure: Discuss the importance of varying sentence structure to make narratives more interesting.

22.Non-linear Storytelling: Introduce concepts like flashbacks or non-chronological order to create complex narratives.

23.Address Point of View: Make sure students understand different points of view (first person, third person) and how each influences storytelling style.

24.Word Choice Matters: Stress the importance of precise language choices in conveying themes and emotions accurately.

25.Incorporate Figurative Language: Teach similes, metaphors, personification, etc., to enhance descriptions.

26.Theme Development: Discuss how a thematic backbone can give direction to narrative stories.

27 Estimate your Timeline Properly

28 Emphasize Revision as an opportunity

29 Consider Digital Narratives over Traditional Narratives

30 Encourage Exploration outside Comfort Zones

31 Set attainable goals

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32 Tips for Teaching Narrative Writing

Written by Alison Smith

Teaching narrative writing and inspiring young writers can be easy. One of our most important jobs is to create a passionate writing culture in our classrooms.

In my experience, the majority of so-called reluctant writers  are hesitant and disinclined to engage in writing tasks because they are fearful of getting it wrong. It is our job to take away the fear and to create a learning environment in which students feel confident to express themselves through writing in a variety of ways.

I’m going to share tips, tricks and teaching resources that will make your epic job so much easier and raise the standard of writing in your classroom.

Set Up a Writing Station

Take the fear out of writing and set up a free writing station. Provide your students with paper, blank comic strips ,  blank postcards, greeting cards , envelopes, pens, pencils, sticky notes or whatever else inspires your students to put pencil to paper.

Acknowledge and praise all writing as a masterpiece! Try to avoid correcting the spelling, punctuation and the grammar used in free writing tasks. Make time for your students to use the writing station. Avoid making it a fast finisher activity, as the students who need it most are likely to miss out!

Use a Writer’s Notebook

Encourage your students to keep a Writer’s Notebook to jot down new ideas for narrative writing. The wonderful Deb Sukarna has told us to…

Be wide awake! Notice events, people, objects in the world around you.

How to Set Up a Writer’s Notebook Daily Routine

Each student needs their own notebook. If you can, let them choose if they’d prefer a lined notebook, or a blank visual diary style book like we’ve used in our photos. Allow students to create a cover for their notebook, or you can provide them with this  Writer’s Notebook Cover Page  which they can decorate. Introduce the concept to your class, ensuring they understand the notebook will not be graded, but will instead be used daily as a place for them to play with ideas and words. This wonderful  Writer’s Notebook Poem   by Ralph Fletcher is great to stick in the front of their notebooks as a reminder of the book’s purpose. Provide students with  Writer’s Notebook Writing Prompt Cards (these are optional) Dedicate at least 5 minutes every day to your students’ Writer’s Notebooks, providing specific activities (see suggestions below!) or allowing free writing time.

Create a Writer’s Prop Table

Picture a small table in your classroom, scattered with a collection of objects such as a key, a padlock, a candle, a map or a train ticket, and your imagination will be popping with ideas for a narrative. Before you know it, your students will be looking for objects to add to the collection and planting seeds for their next narrative.

Direct Instruction

Research shows that students need direct instruction that includes the I do (teacher modelling), we do ( guided practice) and you do (independent practice). Teaching narrative writing is no exception to this rule and it’s critical to include a balance of modelled, guided and independent writing.

A big part of direct teaching instruction is making the lesson objectives clear. Narrative writing is a complex task and so it is important to focus on one thing at a time and to make the success criteria clear. For example, if your lesson focus is narrative structure, don’t stress about the spelling.

Our unit plans follow this direct instruction model.  They have been created with love and care to make your life easier and to help your students to experience success. Look no further than our  Developing Narrative Writing Skills Unit Plan – Year 3 and Year 4  .  This comprehensive unit includes 15 lessons that cover it all and is a must-have.

Slow Down and Break It Up!

For incredible writing outcomes, break down the main parts of a narrative text type. Spend a significant amount of time,  (one or two weeks), on each structural element. Think of it as laying one brick at a time. Ask your students to write a complete narrative only when they have secure knowledge, understanding and experience of writing an orientation , complication , resolution and an ending .

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A great way to teach the structure of narrative writing is to deconstruct a text by cutting it up and sticking it back together! Given that it’s not ideal to cut up books, we have created a sorting task to reinforce the structural features of a narrative text.

If you haven’t already, check out Seven Steps to Writing Success , for a brilliant approach to teaching narrative writing. The seven steps are:

• Plan for success

Sizzling Starts

• Tightening Tensions
• Dynamic Dialogue
• Show, Don’t Tell
• Ban the Boring
• Exciting Endings.

Do your students fall into the trap of writing orientations that begin with One day…, On Monday, Once upon a time…? If your mission is to change this, believe me when I say that students need to see it to believe it. Try showing the opening scene of a great movie to inspire your budding writers and to demonstrate that a sizzling start is critical to engaging the audience. The opening scene of INCREDIBLES 2 Movie Clip – Opening Scene (2018), which takes just four minutes to view, is a great example.

Read amazing story openings ! The more the better! I love the sizzling start to How to Bee by Bren MacDibble…

Today! It’s here! Bright and real and waiting. The knowing of it bursts into my head so big and sudden, like a crack of morning sun bursting through the gap at the top of the door…

Once you’ve given your students the opportunity to read, watch and experience the impact of amazing sizzling starts, show your students our Narrative Plot Structure Diagram to demonstrate how a great narrative often starts with action!

Need more? Download our  Seven Sensational Story Starters PowerPoint . One of the most effective ways to begin a narrative is to create a ‘hook’ to capture the reader’s attention. This PowerPoint presentation includes seven sensational methods that your students can use to begin their stories in an exciting and interesting way.

Shared Writing

Shared writing is a crucial part of teaching narrative writing. This effective teaching strategy (whereby the teacher models writing while being given ideas and direction from the students), is ideal to use with the whole class or in a small group.

Try our  Visual Writing Prompts Widget as a stimulus for shared writing. Each image comes with writing prompts ideas,  Five Ws and One H questions and suggested activities.

Tips for leading shared writing sessions

• Focus your shared writing session on one or two elements of narrative writing. For example, focus on text structure, ideas, characters and setting or vocabulary.
• Keep it short. This will depend on the year level of your class. 10 -15 minutes is an awesome effort. As a general rule, as soon as you notice that your students are disengaged, call it a day, until tomorrow!
• Model how to write a narrative using a plan. In fact, model how to write a plan! Show your students the art of referring to the plan on a regular basis.
• Use Think, Pair, Share and Elbow Partners , to encourage ideas and discussion.
• Inspire your students and stimulate ideas through the use of visual prompts, props and feely bags.
• Make it fun and do it often.

For more useful ideas on how to use writing prompts in the classroom, don’t miss our blog   5 Ways to Spark Imagination in the Classroom Using Writing Prompts .

Are Your Students Struggling to Come Up With Ideas?

If it’s ideas that you are struggling with, we have created a  Narrative Writing Visual Prompts Presentation that could be your new bestie. Students respond to beautifully illustrated visual prompts by answering a series of inference and prediction questions. The answers to these questions are then used to generate ideas for planning and writing a narrative.

Graphic Organisers and Check Lists

Do your students struggle to sequence their ideas and follow the text structure of a narrative? My guess is that they haven’t spent enough time on the planning stage.

Help your students to plan their narrative writing by using one of our  Narrative Plot Structure Templates  or another graphic organiser from our collection.

Encourage your students to monitor and assess their own success by asking them to complete a Narrative Writing Checklist .  This is a simple, effective way to keep your students on track!

There are many different ways to teach narrative writing. It’s likely that your school has its own unique approach. Nevertheless, I hope some of these ideas and resources will take the pressure off as you guide your students to experience success with the art of narrative writing.

Whatever teaching strategies you choose to use, keep in mind that your major goal is to nurture a love of writing.

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It would make my day to see a photo of your new writer’s prop table!

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Teaching narrative writing tips and activities.

Last week, I walked you through how I thought Opinion Writing should be taught! Today, you’re going to get teaching narrative writing tips. Like last week, I’m going to share best practices I think are best, mentor text suggestions, and even a closer look at Common Core expectations. I hope you can walk away with ideas, activities, and inspiration for your narrative writing lesson plans. All of the images you see below (except for the read-alouds) are part of my ELA writing units. The links to all grade levels are at the bottom!

Time to check grade level expectations from Common Core

Common Core writing domain focuses on three big types of writing: informative, narrative, and today’s topic OPINION WRITING! It begins kindergarten and each year, gets progressively more in-depth and detailed. Here is a look at K-5’s expectations for opinion writing, according to Common Core.

Primary Standards:

• Kinder: Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.
• 1st: Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.
• 2nd: Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

Intermediate (3rd and 4th) Standards:

• 3rd: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective techniques, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. (a- Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.) (b- Use dialogue and descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings to develop experiences and events or show the response of characters to situations.) (c- Use temporal words and phrases to signal event order.) (d- Provide a sense of closure.)
• 4th: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective techniques, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. (a- Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.) (b- Use dialogue and description to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations.) (c- Use a variety of transitional words and phrases to manage the sequence of events.) (d- Use concrete words and phrases and sensory details to convey experiences and events precisely.) (e- Provide a conclusion that follows from the narrated experiences or events.)

Outline of narrative writing teaching unit…

• What is narrative writing?
• Teaching the difference between big events and small moments
• Write an introduction
• Sequencing events
• Teaching how to write conclusions
• Tying it all together & practice opportunities

Stock up on your narrative writing mentor texts!

All of the pieces within this blog post should have a mentor text example along with it. Each time you teach your students about a component of narrative writing, use a strong example! Each of the book links below are affiliate links to Amazon.

• What You Know First by Patricia Maclachlan
• Every Friday by Dan Yaccarino
• Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe
• Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
• Bigmama’s by Donald Crews
• Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems
• Roller Coaster by Maria Frazee
• Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco
• When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant
• Enemy Pie by Derek Munson
• The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant
• Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena

Let’s begin… Start by teaching WHAT narrative writing is.

First, we are going to kick off our writing unit by teaching WHAT narrative writing is and how it’s different from the other big writing pieces. Since it is one of the three types of writing pieces, it’s important for students to understand what goes into personal narratives and fictional narratives. The big components I’m going to talk about in this blog post (focused on K-4) is an introduction, events (we will get more in detail later), and a conclusion. Students must understand all the pieces of that before they try writing their own.

It is also important for students to recognize the difference between personal narratives and fictional narratives. Since they’re going to be asked to write both types of narrative writing pieces throughout their units (links below), they must know what goes into each one.

After you introduce narrative writing and teach the types of narrative writing, give them some activities to help them practice determining what parts of the story they’re listening to or reading. One activity is a story read aloud. The teacher will read aloud a sample personal narrative, and then he or she will reread it one sentence at a time. Then, students will turn and talk with a partner to identify if that sentence is part of the introduction, events, details, or conclusion. Another activity they can do is a fold-and-snip book where they lift a flap and write a sample sentence under each (or they can write the purpose of each personal narrative component).

Teach big events & small moments

Now it’s time to teach about big events and small moments. When you’re teaching narrative writing, it gets tricky for younger students to differentiate between big events that happened and smaller moments within those moments. For example, a big event would be taking a trip to Disney World. But focusing on a smaller moment within that event could be meeting Cinderella or riding the new Avatar roller coaster. This helps students focus in on writing more specific details, feelings, and actions when they’re writing their narratives.

Give the students lots of practice with big events and small moments. With partners and groups, give students an example big event and ask them to come up with sample smaller moments. First, give them specific big events on a smaller circle map. Then, ask them to come up with their own big event examples.

Move on to introductions

Students will now be ready to move on to introductions because you taught them components and small moments. They’re ready to start practicing! First, you need to introduce introductions (mouthful, right?) You’ll teach them the different ways that you can introduce their narrative and hook their reader. Then, you’ll let them practice identifying sample introductions. This will benefit them in two ways. One way is that they’re getting tons of exposure to different examples of strong introductions. Another way is that they’ll be comfortable with the different types of introductions, which are using dialogue, asking questions, giving details, giving facts, using onomatopoeia, and using emotion.

Once they’ve listened to mentor texts and practiced with strong examples, it’s time for them to start practicing coming up with their own. First, ask students to work with a partner to come up with a clever introduction when they see a picture card. Then, they can practice writing a sentence or two on a worksheet when given a topic.

Teach how to sequence events

After your students practice introduction, you can get into the bulk of your writing… the events. This is one of the hardest parts of teaching narrative writing because the majority of the story detail is in this piece of their writing. Within the body, students are going to cover the sequenced events, details, feelings, actions, and emotions.

One way to ask them to practice this is by showing them sequenced events on a picture strip. This shows details of a storyline that students can verbally discuss with a partner. After they study the pictures, they can try to create 3 sentences for each picture to describe the events. A big focus of this part of narrative writing is temporal words, or words such as first, next, then, and last. This will help students be able to organize their events in chronological order.

Another way to help kids with events is to show them strong mentor texts as examples. When reading aloud a story, such as Owl Moon, the teacher needs to stop and discuss when they find new events and details that the author has provided. Then, students can write about the ‘first, next, then, and the last events in the text they read.

Don’t forget to include details when you’re teaching narrative writing. If you look at the Common Core standards listed above, you will see that second grade is the age which students are expected to start adding details. They’re expected to start using feelings and actions to help explain their story. Give them lots of practice opportunities to perfect adding these into a story.

Teaching narrative writing conclusions

And finally, we will move on to conclusions in narrative writing. When you’re teaching narrative writing, students must know the different types of conclusions, like giving a suggestion, asking a question, or describing a vivid image. First, you can read a few mentor texts’ conclusions to show examples. Then, you can ask them to come up with their own examples after learning about each specific type.

After a few activities that show students different examples of all types of conclusions, let them practice coming up with their own when they’re given a topic.

Tying narrative writing together

And now for the fun part!

Finally, you’ve taught all the pieces of your narrative writing unit. Therefore, it’s time to practice, practice, practice. Choose high-interest and engaging topics for students to write about. Give them lots of different prompts to pick from. Provide them with scaffolded graphic organizers that will help them brainstorm and pre-write. They’re going to rock those narratives!

Interested in Free Graphic Organizers for Your Writing Unit?

Grab a free set of narrative writing graphic organizers. One page for each grade level, perfect for differentiation or just grabbing what you need.

Or Do You Want Ready-Made Lesson Plans for Narrative Writing?

If you’re interested in getting your students to master writing without having to spend hours on planning and prep, I have all-inclusive units for you! These no-prep units have everything you need to teach opinion writing in your classroom!

Narrative Units come complete with anchor charts, lesson plans, graphic organizers, writing prompts, and more! Click the button for your grade level below:

Want more writing blog posts for ideas and tips?

• How to teach opinion writing
• Tying writing into your math block
• Warming up for your writing block
• How to make their writing interactive
• Read more about: Common Core Aligned , Uncategorized , Writing Blog Posts

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• How to write a narrative essay | Example & tips

How to Write a Narrative Essay | Example & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

A narrative essay tells a story. In most cases, this is a story about a personal experience you had. This type of essay , along with the descriptive essay , allows you to get personal and creative, unlike most academic writing .

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Table of contents

What is a narrative essay for, choosing a topic, interactive example of a narrative essay, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about narrative essays.

When assigned a narrative essay, you might find yourself wondering: Why does my teacher want to hear this story? Topics for narrative essays can range from the important to the trivial. Usually the point is not so much the story itself, but the way you tell it.

A narrative essay is a way of testing your ability to tell a story in a clear and interesting way. You’re expected to think about where your story begins and ends, and how to convey it with eye-catching language and a satisfying pace.

These skills are quite different from those needed for formal academic writing. For instance, in a narrative essay the use of the first person (“I”) is encouraged, as is the use of figurative language, dialogue, and suspense.

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Narrative essay assignments vary widely in the amount of direction you’re given about your topic. You may be assigned quite a specific topic or choice of topics to work with.

• Write a story about your first day of school.
• Write a story about your favorite holiday destination.

You may also be given prompts that leave you a much wider choice of topic.

• Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself.
• Write about an achievement you are proud of. What did you accomplish, and how?

In these cases, you might have to think harder to decide what story you want to tell. The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to talk about a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.

For example, a trip where everything went according to plan makes for a less interesting story than one where something unexpected happened that you then had to respond to. Choose an experience that might surprise the reader or teach them something.

Narrative essays in college applications

When applying for college , you might be asked to write a narrative essay that expresses something about your personal qualities.

For example, this application prompt from Common App requires you to respond with a narrative essay.

In this context, choose a story that is not only interesting but also expresses the qualities the prompt is looking for—here, resilience and the ability to learn from failure—and frame the story in a way that emphasizes these qualities.

An example of a short narrative essay, responding to the prompt “Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself,” is shown below.

Hover over different parts of the text to see how the structure works.

Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and math over the humanities. My instinct was always to think of these subjects as more solid and serious than classes like English. If there was no right answer, I thought, why bother? But recently I had an experience that taught me my academic interests are more flexible than I had thought: I took my first philosophy class.

Before I entered the classroom, I was skeptical. I waited outside with the other students and wondered what exactly philosophy would involve—I really had no idea. I imagined something pretty abstract: long, stilted conversations pondering the meaning of life. But what I got was something quite different.

A young man in jeans, Mr. Jones—“but you can call me Rob”—was far from the white-haired, buttoned-up old man I had half-expected. And rather than pulling us into pedantic arguments about obscure philosophical points, Rob engaged us on our level. To talk free will, we looked at our own choices. To talk ethics, we looked at dilemmas we had faced ourselves. By the end of class, I’d discovered that questions with no right answer can turn out to be the most interesting ones.

The experience has taught me to look at things a little more “philosophically”—and not just because it was a philosophy class! I learned that if I let go of my preconceptions, I can actually get a lot out of subjects I was previously dismissive of. The class taught me—in more ways than one—to look at things with an open mind.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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If you’re not given much guidance on what your narrative essay should be about, consider the context and scope of the assignment. What kind of story is relevant, interesting, and possible to tell within the word count?

The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to reflect on a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.

Don’t worry too much if your topic seems unoriginal. The point of a narrative essay is how you tell the story and the point you make with it, not the subject of the story itself.

Narrative essays are usually assigned as writing exercises at high school or in university composition classes. They may also form part of a university application.

When you are prompted to tell a story about your own life or experiences, a narrative essay is usually the right response.

The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.

Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.

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Caulfield, J. (2023, July 23). How to Write a Narrative Essay | Example & Tips. Scribbr. Retrieved August 19, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/narrative-essay/

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How to Teach Narrative Writing

In this post, I share 5 tips for How to Teach Narrative Writing and provide details about the Narrative Writing Units I have created for Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade students. Be sure to download 3 FREE narrative writing graphic organizers !

As teachers we spend a tremendous amount of time teaching our students to write. And for good reason! The ability to clearly express one’s thoughts in writing is an essential academic and life-skill. Study after study has shown that students who are able to master writing skills early on struggle less in overall literacy and communication .

The Common Core writing domain focuses on three big types of writing: informative, opinion and narrative writing.  Each genre serves a unique purpose and follows a specific structure which we must explicitly teach our students.   

In earlier posts I shared tips and resources for teaching Informative Writing and Opinion Writing .  Today I’m excited to move on to the final genre, Narrative Writing.  

I love to teach narrative writing.  Personal narratives are a great genre to start the year with because they allow you to get to know your students a little bit better.  Most kids love to tell us stories about their lives, so writing personal narratives often comes naturally to them.  

Imaginative narratives, on the other hand, allow students’ creativity to shine!  Many students find it very motivating and engaging to be allowed to write the stories they create in their own mind. 

Today I’m sharing 5 tips for teaching narrative writing, as well as details about my narrative writing resource. It is a writing unit that has everything you need to bring narrative writing into your kindergarten , first grade, or secon d grade literacy centers! 

Tips for Teaching Narrative Writing

1.  read narrative writing mentor texts .

Before you can ask your students to write in a genre that is new to them, you must first immerse them in it.  So to begin your unit, you’ll want to share examples of narrative writing with your students.  These mentor texts provide students with examples of excellent narrative writing. 

As you read them aloud, highlight the way the author structures their writing.  Identify the author’s purpose, the topic, the order of the events, and how the author felt.  All of these things will help students better understand what type of writing we are asking them to do.    

When you’re picking narrative mentor texts to share with your students there are a few things to consider .  First, do you (the educator) think it is excellent?  Second, is it easy for your students to understand?  And finally, is it relevant to the type of writing you are teaching?  If you answer “Yes!” to all three, then you’re good to go!

To help you out I’ve created a list of excellent mentor texts you can use when teaching narrative writing to kindergarten, first, or second grade students.  

A List of Narrative Writing Mentor Texts:

• New Shoes – Chris Raschka
• Jabari Jumps – Gaia Cornwall
• Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale – Mo Willems
• Library Mouse – Daniel Kirk
• Rocket Writes a Story – Tad Hills
• Diary of a Worm – Doreen Cronin
• The Night I Followed My Dog – Nina Laden
• Rubia and the Three Osos – Susan Middleton Elya
• The Three Snow Bears – Jan Brett

I’ve saved all these titles on one board so you can easily take a closer look at these mentor texts.  Click here to see this list on Amazon .

2.  Model Your Own Narrative Writing

When modeling your own narrative writing I suggest you use an experience you’ve shared as a class.  It could be as simple as a short nature walk outside the school building, a field trip you went on, or a class celebration you had.  Show your students that narratives don’t have to be about big events.  Small moments, like a walk outside, can be stretched out and turned into a great narrative writing piece! 

Next, model how you plan your writing using a graphic organizer.  Highlight how you have a topic, use temporal words to order your events, details and a closing sentence.   Don’t be afraid to put the events out of order!  Let the students catch the mistake and help you fix it!   

Model how you use the graphic organizer to guide you as you write out your full piece. 

Finally, reread your work aloud to ensure it makes sense and that the events are in the correct order.  Check for any silly mistakes and come up with a fitting title! 

3. Use Anchor Charts

You want your students to know that when they write a narrative piece they are writing a story to entertain the reader.  It can be a true, personal story from their life, or an imagined fictional one.  Creating an anchor chart with this information helps to remind students their purpose for writing.

Create a second anchor chart that reviews temporal words.  Words such as yesterday, today, first, next, or last describe time or order of events and help make a narrative story more clear for the reader.  

When writing fictional narratives, an anchor chart of fictional sentence starters can help students to get ideas for a story.  

Finally, you’ll want to create an anchor chart using the writing you model. This will serve as another example of excellent narrative writing.  As a class, add labels to identify the title, the topic, temporal words, details, and the closing sentence in your shared writing.  

All of these anchor charts can be posted in your writing center. Encourage your students to refer back to them and use them as support as they write their own pieces.

4. Allow students to edit and share their writing

Provide a good writers checklist at your writing center.  For narrative writing you’ll want the checklist to include items such,  “Does my writing have a title?”  “Is there a clear beginning, middle, and end?”  “Did I use temporal words?” as well as reminders to check for spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors.  

You can also create a rubric specific to the genre. Model how you use it to assess your own work and how it can be used to provide feedback to others.   

Give students the opportunity to share their writing with others!  Pair students with partners and let them read their pieces to each other.  Encourage them to provide feedback using the editing checklist and the rubric as a guide.  

5. Provide Daily Opportunities for Students to Write

As with all things, writing takes PRACTICE!  Students need dedicated instructional time to learn the skills and strategies necessary to become effective writers, as well as time to practice what they learn.  

When you think about your daily instructional schedule, make sure you are giving your students ample opportunities to practice their narrative writing through whole group instruction, small groups, and/or through independent practice in writing centers. 

Narrative Writing Units For Kindergarten, First, and Second Grade Students 

Today I’m excited to share with you the details about my Kindergarten Narrative , 1st Grade Narrative , and my 2nd grade Narrative writing units!  I love them because they have ALL the resources you need to give your students the practice needed to master narrative writing.  

These narrative writing units were developed with standards-based research specific to each grade. You can use them within whole class or small group lessons, or as a literacy center activity where students can practice narrative writing independently!  

Let’s take a closer look at each one…. 

Kindergarten Narrative Writing Unit

The kindergarten resource has everything you need to incorporate narrative writing into your literacy centers all year long!  

To help your students better understand the genre you’ll get two mini-lessons , one on personal narratives and the other for imaginative narratives.  I recommend focusing on personal narratives at the start of the year and moving onto imaginative narratives in the second semester.  

You’ll also get a list of suggested mentor texts and online resources, academic vocabulary posters, printable anchor charts, graphic organizers and differentiated writing prompts.  

These seasonal and all-year-long writing prompts come in 3 differentiated versions to meet your Kindergarteners where they are developmentally throughout the year.  Each writing prompt comes with a vocabulary word web to assist young writers in brainstorming ideas and spelling words while writing.

Finally, you’ll get a narrative writing editing checklist appropriate for the kindergarten level. 

First Grade and Second Grade Narrative Writing Units

The first and second grade resources were designed with standards-based research specific to grade.  You’ll get a personal narrative mini-lesson and imaginative narrative mini-lesson to use as a review of the genre.  You’ll also get a list of suggested mentor texts and online resources, academic vocabulary posters, anchor charts, graphic organizers and seasonal writing prompts! 

You won’t hear students say, “I don’t know what to write about!” when they are using this resource!  The seasonal writing prompts include choice boards for personal narratives and imaginative narratives, as well as sentence starters and vocabulary banks to assist in brainstorming ideas and spelling words while writing.

The personal narrative and imaginative narrative seasonal prompts are both PRINTABLE & DIGITAL. The digital version has been PRELOADED for you, with 1 click add them to your Google Drive or upload them to SeeSaw.

Finally, you’ll get self-editing checklists and rubrics for both personal and imaginative narrative writing.  The rubric makes a great self-assessment tool and can be used as a guide for peer feedback.     

I love these resources because they can be used in so many different ways.  They offer opportunities for students to practice both personal and imaginative narrative writing as a whole class, in small groups, as a literacy center activity, for homework, or as a meaningful activity for when they have a substitute teacher!  

FREE Narrative Writing Graphic Organizers

Are you ready to begin teaching Narrative Writing in your classroom? To help get you started, I am happy to offer you 3 FREE narrative writing graphic organizers! You can download them here.

Writing is an essential skill that benefits students well beyond the walls of our classrooms. As teachers, we work hard to plan engaging activities that we hope will build our students’ confidence and help them to develop a lifelong love of writing.

I hope the information and resources I’ve shared on narrative, opinion and informative writing will help to bring stronger instruction and more meaningful writing practice to your kindergarten, first and second grade classrooms!

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How to Teach Narrative Writing in 2nd Grade with Spectacular Results

Teaching narrative writing can be SO fun! But reading student’s personal narratives can get dry after a while. You can only read about so many trips to the pool or vacations where students detail getting to the airport, then their writing ends once they finally arrive in Disney World. Get your students engaged while teaching narrative writing by doing fun, imaginative and personal narratives this year!

Important Concepts:

Students need to recount either one event in detail or a series of events when writing a narrative. One misconception is that the narrative has to have happened to them. It is OKAY to have your students write an imaginative narrative.

Typically, I start by having students write personal narratives, as it is easy for them to recount something that has happened to them. Then, once we have done a few personal narratives, we move to more exciting imaginative topics.

By second grade, students should be able to write a topic sentence, 3-4 event sentences WITH details, and a closing sentence. This means student writing should be anywhere from 5-10 sentences at least. However, many students are ready to write in paragraphs by second grade and should be encouraged to do so by adding more detail sentences to each event.

Challenges:

Students might struggle understanding the difference between an event and a detail. Talk to students about how an event is SOMETHING that happened, and details are the supporting ideas that help tell that story. Details can add dialogue, words from 5 senses, or more explicitly explain certain subjects from their writing.

The Writing Process:

I cannot stress enough the importance of taking your students through the writing process every single week, for every single genre. This involves brainstorming/planning, drafting, revising, editing, publishing, grading and sharing.

Hook/Brainstorm:

Getting students EXCITED can be half the battle during writing. I love to tie all of my writing projects to engaging read alouds and fun topics. You can find my favorite narrative writing companions here.

It is equally important to MODEL each step of the writing process for students. After reading aloud our companion text, I typically will read aloud my model. I also will then model my own plan so students can see what I am looking for when it is their turn to write.

Then, it is time for students to make a plan. Be sure not to skip this phase, it is NOT writing a full draft, but rather jotting down their ideas they are going to write about. They can use bullet points or pictures to gather their ideas, but this should NOT be done in full sentences and should not take longer than 5-10 minutes.

I like to give students two full days to draft for narrative writing. Each week, we focus on a different important skill that needs to be taught during narrative writing. Some skills we focus on are:

• Transition Words • Topic Sentences • Closing Sentences • Adding Details such as adjectives, prepositions, similes, metaphors, etc. • Adding Dialogue • Writing with a problem and a solution

Typically, students write their topic sentence, and first two events and details one day. Then, I have them write their second two events and details, along with the closing on the second day. We focus on the skill of the week, while also reinforcing the other skills that were previously taught.

Revising/Editing:

I spend a lot of time at the beginning of the year setting up a peer editing time that is productive for students. We spend an entire day revising and editing, and I also roam the room and select certain students each week to conference with during this time.

Depending on the length of your writing block, you can either meet with all of your students or rotate through small groups of them each week.

Publish, Grade, Share:

I always have students publish a piece of writing every single week. We add it to our writing portfolios that we take home at the end of the year. When students finish publishing, I have them grade themselves on the rubric. Self-assessment is such a powerful tool for students.

After they self grade, we find time to share each week. This can be partner sharing, author’s chair, sharing with buddies, recording themselves reading or more.

What is your favorite tip for teaching narrative writing? Drop it in the comments below!

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Your Essential Guide to Teaching Narrative Writing

By Helly Douglas

By the time students have learnt the basics of writing, they should have encountered many types of narrative and personal accounts. As they get older, they need to develop this understanding into rounded pieces of writing. That’s where you come in.

What should you include? How can you get the best out of your class? We unpick key strategies you can use to teach narrative writing well.

Show Students Good Examples of Narrative

Inspire students with a stimulus, give purpose to the writing, give students choice, look at structure, have a way to measure success, create a quick draft, teach writing skills, teach editing skills.

Why is it often only younger students who get a daily story?

You can’t write something you’ve never imagined. Students need to read widely to create good work. Expose them to significant works of fiction to inspire them. Promote reading in your school and share lists for different year groups to help them find something they’ll love. Watch out for the latest releases from popular authors.

Do you find your students always read the same types of stories? It’s hard for them to be creative when they’ve only experienced one genre style. Help them move out of their comfort zone with personalised recommendations.

Which leads us to your own reading habits. Make young adult (YA) fiction part of your own reading list. Then you can make recommendations and talk to your students about the books they’re going to love.

It’s wonderful to see many high school teachers finding time for creative writing. But all too often students struggle to think of ideas or face the dreaded ‘blank page’ feeling.

Use a stimulus to make creative writing sessions more exciting. Whether it’s a picture, text extract, or object, you’ll find a stimulus is useful for generating ideas and adding a purpose to the writing.

Increase their interest and ownership by giving them choices. Let them have fun with what they produce. Make it a surprising experience, rather than the same boring, familiar routine every time.

Why are they writing this? If there’s no reason for it, many will be wonder why they should bother. Be creative and find a purpose for each unit of work. Smaller pieces of writing can build towards this final outcome.

They could:

• Publish their work in a class blog
• Submit to the school newspaper
• Make classroom displays
• Write individual mini-books
• Enter writing competitions
• Create class books
• Read work out in assembly
• Record it as a video
• Publish on the school’s social media accounts or website
• Send it to the author whose work inspired them

The possibilities for purposeful writing are endless. It motivates students to try harder and gives a sense of achievement when finished. Writing for writing’s sake leads to lower outcomes.

Often, you’ll need your students to write in a particular way to improve one specific area. It’s easier to limit their choices so you can hone their abilities.

But do you shut down their other chances to get creative? When you limit one area of writing, try offering them more freedom in other areas. Students are less likely to chaff about a restriction, like writing in the first person, if they get to choose everything else.

When we read books, we get carried away by characters and plot. We don’t notice the structure of the text. Our students will not naturally spot the organisation that’s going on.

Unpick how narratives can be organised with your class. Play with the order of writing, looking at flashbacks, flash-forwards, alternative viewpoints, and change of narrator. When you draw attention to the structure, your students will start using it in their personal work.

Use diagrams to show how narrative writing can be structured in different ways, normally using conflict to drive the action forwards. There’s no correct way to show this. You’ll find inspiration on Pinterest and Google image searches for different story planner templates.

Students can’t imagine what you’re looking for. You must show them what you expect. Sharing ‘What a Good One Looks Like’ (WAGOLL) lets them see the structure and key features you’re looking for.

Discuss what makes the WAGOLL effective and the purpose behind organisational choices. This helps them see that good narrative doesn’t just appear when they write, but requires careful planning.

Along with a WAGOLL, share a clear list of what you expect to see in this piece of writing. Students can self assess against it. You can use it for marking and add comments against this checklist.

A student-friendly criteria is useful for improving work further. Use red, amber, green (RAG) ratings so they can see at a glance one key area to focus on improving.

Overcome the ‘blank page’ feeling by getting your students to create a quick draft. This will give all the key points, with none of the detail they’ll add in their final piece. It’s useful for checking plot holes before they become a problem.

Share supporting structures such as sentence starters, key questions, and picture boxes. You’ll find plenty online or create your own using a free template design tool like Visme .

Once the quick draft is complete, they can decide how much time to devote to fleshing out each section.

There’s so much for students to learn about narrative writing. Don’t overload them with everything or they’ll have no time for any independent work.

Choose key areas to focus on in each unit. Your overview documents should show how you cover every aspect of writing over the year with opportunities for over-learning and practising skills.

Key aspects to cover include:

• Creating and punctuating dialogue
• Exposition to share back story
• Creating effective characters
• Figurative language
• Transitions between paragraphs and sections
• Creating tension and building suspense
• Effective word choice
• Writing description
• Developing flow
• Varying sentence lengths

Start your lessons by direct teaching skills before allowing a long block of uninterrupted writing time. Use the end of each session to recap on the skill focus and look for evidence of it in their work.

Students generally feel they’ve finished when they’ve done their full draft. It’s difficult to get them to see the benefits of editing. Leaving a gap between writing and editing is one way to help them see their work with fresh eyes. Separate proofreading from editing so they can see the difference.

Editing doesn’t need to be a boring process. You can make it engaging and useful . This essential process will help them in every area of English, so it’s worth getting it right.

If you want to help your students visualise the editing process, use ProWritingAid. It's a useful tool that provides detailed reports and tips for a wide range of areas including dialogue and sentence structure. It’s perfect for editing narrative pieces. The Sentence Length Report highlights long sentences in a piece of text.

Just open a blank document in ProWritingAid, and paste an extract in. You can turn this visualisation into a fun exercise by getting your students to try and read the sentence all in one breath, and then working out how you might vary sentence length together.

High school English lessons should never be boring. Teaching narrative lets you be creative and shows your students that writing is fun. Thinking of an exciting purpose particularly supports reluctant writers or those who struggle with imagining new ideas. Carefully plan how you will teach discrete skills to avoid cramming everything into one unit of work. Choose a few key areas for one unit and explicitly teach them with opportunities for over-learning. Don’t forget time to edit and improve their writing. A clear success criteria makes it easy for students to make changes and improve. Want to use ProWritingAid with your classroom? Download this free book now: ProWritingAid Teacher's Manual Editing technology like prowritingaid provides immediate, personalized feedback that will help students to better understand grammar and writing techniques., in this guide , we walk you through exactly how to use prowritingaid in your classroom and give you tools and templates for creating a rigorous, effective independent writing practice with your students.. Be confident about grammar Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send. Helly Douglas Helly Douglas is a UK writer and teacher, specialising in education, children, and parenting. She loves making the complex seem simple through blogs, articles, and curriculum content. You can check out her work at hellydouglas.com or connect on Twitter @hellydouglas. When she’s not writing, you will find her in a classroom, being a mum or battling against the wilderness of her garden—the garden is winning! Get started with ProWritingAid Drop us a line or let's stay in touch via : Skip to primary navigation Skip to main content Skip to primary sidebar Skip to footer Raise the Bar Reading A Reading Teacher's Blog Teaching Narrative Writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Grade When teaching narrative writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade, there are so many writing skills to cover. They range from creating a sequence of events (beginning, middle, and end) to more difficult skills like building strong characterization. With a class full of students at such varying levels of writing, it can be overwhelming to think of where to start with your narrative writing unit.   Narrative writing can be one of the most motivational types of writing for students since the topics can be something they feel connected to in their own lives.  Personal narratives allow them to talk about their own experiences they want to share, and fictional narratives let students create a story about absolutely anything that they want!   As you can see in the chart below, students are expected to do a little bit more with narrative writing as they grow as writers from 1 st to 3 rd grade.     So, 1 st grade focuses on developing sequenced events (beginning, middle, end).   With 2 nd and 3 rd grade, the focus is creating a hook/opening, events (beginning, middle, end), and a closing. In 2 nd and 3 rd grade students also need to begin to develop characterization. For young writers learning such a new, specific format of writing, it is really important to break it up into small, clear steps.  Below is how I tackle narrative writing step by step: INTRODUCE NARRATIVE WRITING: First, I explain what a narrative is with visuals and examples.  I go through a pre-written narrative writing example.  These examples will differ depending on whether we are working on writing fictional narratives or personal narratives. We identify and discuss each part of the piece of writing.  For first graders that means the beginning, middle, and end.  For second and third graders, that means an opening, events (beginning, middle and end), and closing. GUIDED WHOLE GROUP PRACTICE: I like to model the actual process of writing a narrative as well.  With modeling a personal narrative, I like to pick an experience we have had in school that year so that it is easy for students to participate.  I keep this model basic and clear so that students are not overwhelmed in what they need to produce in their first piece of narrative writing.  While modeling, I refer to the prewritten example that I provided earlier.  I also display sentence starters and transitions to use as a guide.    INDEPENDENT NARRATIVE WRITING PRACTICE: First, students can practice the narrative format by using picture prompts for beginning, middle, and end.  They use the visuals to describe what happens from the beginning to the end of their story. Next, it’s time for students to begin fictional narrative or personal narrative writing from scratch!  At first, I usually provide a writing prompt for the entire class that is easily relatable.  The prompts will vary depending on if we are working on writing personal narratives (“Tell about a time when…”) or fictional narratives (“Write a story about…”).  However, you could also give multiple options or have students develop their own individual topics.   During the prewriting phase of the writing process, students brainstorm using graphic organizers.  I like give students two graphic organizers – one for them to first brainstorm ideas for their drafts, and then one to organize their ideas into a narrative writing format. While writing their drafts, students can refer to sentence starters to help guide them in writing their stories.   After writing their drafts, I give students an editing checklist to use as a reference.  This makes it easier for them to make sure they have included each part of a piece of narrative writing.   TARGET NARRATIVE WRITING SKILLS: As students are ready, I target specific narrative writing skills either as a whole class, or with just a small group that is ready for taking their writing to the next level.  To introduce a particular narrative writing skill (i.e. writing narrative hooks), I display a poster that is student-friendly with visuals and examples.  Then, I have graphic organizers or practice pages that students can use to work through each strategy on their own.   Most students will need help with the following narrative skills: Writing a Strong Narrative Hook: Breaking narrative hooks down by hook types is so helpful for giving them some tools for creating their own leads.  Grab the posters below and a couple practice writing pages for free here . Writing a Strong Narrative Ending: Similar to writing hooks, breaking down narrative endings by type is also a helpful way for students to try out different closings for their piece of writing. Small Moments Writing: So often, personal narratives can just turn into a list of moments in order. By teaching and practicing small moments writing , students can see how much more powerful their writing becomes when they zoom in on the most important moment in their story. Describing Characters: When teaching narrative writing in 2 nd grade, students need to learn to describe characters by their actions, thoughts, and feelings.  By 3 rd grade, the Common Core asks that students also use dialogue to develop characterization in their writing. Describing Character Feelings You can display a poster of different ways to describe similar feelings to build stronger word choice in their writing.  Students can use this poster to go through and edit their word choice in their own piece of writing.  Using Fiction Story Elements: You can have students prewrite with story elements graphic organizers to ensure they hit each element in their own writing. ONGOING NARRATIVE WRITING PRACTICE: I love using fictional narrative and personal narrative journals to provide students with tons of ongoing practice!  I use them as informal free-writes just for continual practice, but some or all of the entries could be used for writing pieces that go through the writing process (prewriting, drafting, editing, revising, and publishing) as well.   All of the materials shown in this blog post for teaching narrative writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade can be found in the Narrative Writing Unit in my TpT shop! Next: Teaching Opinion Writing in the Primary Grades Copyright 2021 Raise the Bar Reading Customized by Laine Sutherland Design The Ultimate Narrative Essay Guide for Beginners A narrative essay tells a story in chronological order, with an introduction that introduces the characters and sets the scene. Then a series of events leads to a climax or turning point, and finally a resolution or reflection on the experience. Speaking of which, are you in sixes and sevens about narrative essays? Don’t worry this ultimate expert guide will wipe out all your doubts. So let’s get started. Table of Contents Everything You Need to Know About Narrative Essay What is a narrative essay. When you go through a narrative essay definition, you would know that a narrative essay purpose is to tell a story. It’s all about sharing an experience or event and is different from other types of essays because it’s more focused on how the event made you feel or what you learned from it, rather than just presenting facts or an argument. Let’s explore more details on this interesting write-up and get to know how to write a narrative essay. Elements of a Narrative Essay Here’s a breakdown of the key elements of a narrative essay: A narrative essay has a beginning, middle, and end. It builds up tension and excitement and then wraps things up in a neat package. Real people, including the writer, often feature in personal narratives. Details of the characters and their thoughts, feelings, and actions can help readers to relate to the tale. It’s really important to know when and where something happened so we can get a good idea of the context. Going into detail about what it looks like helps the reader to really feel like they’re part of the story. Conflict or Challenge  A story in a narrative essay usually involves some kind of conflict or challenge that moves the plot along. It could be something inside the character, like a personal battle, or something from outside, like an issue they have to face in the world. Theme or Message A narrative essay isn’t just about recounting an event – it’s about showing the impact it had on you and what you took away from it. It’s an opportunity to share your thoughts and feelings about the experience, and how it changed your outlook. Emotional Impact The author is trying to make the story they’re telling relatable, engaging, and memorable by using language and storytelling to evoke feelings in whoever’s reading it. Narrative essays let writers have a blast telling stories about their own lives. It’s an opportunity to share insights and impart wisdom, or just have some fun with the reader. Descriptive language, sensory details, dialogue, and a great narrative voice are all essentials for making the story come alive. The Purpose of a Narrative Essay A narrative essay is more than just a story – it’s a way to share a meaningful, engaging, and relatable experience with the reader. Includes: Sharing Personal Experience Narrative essays are a great way for writers to share their personal experiences, feelings, thoughts, and reflections. It’s an opportunity to connect with readers and make them feel something. Entertainment and Engagement The essay attempts to keep the reader interested by using descriptive language, storytelling elements, and a powerful voice. It attempts to pull them in and make them feel involved by creating suspense, mystery, or an emotional connection. Conveying a Message or Insight Narrative essays are more than just a story – they aim to teach you something. They usually have a moral lesson, a new understanding, or a realization about life that the author gained from the experience. Building Empathy and Understanding By telling their stories, people can give others insight into different perspectives, feelings, and situations. Sharing these tales can create compassion in the reader and help broaden their knowledge of different life experiences. Inspiration and Motivation Stories about personal struggles, successes, and transformations can be really encouraging to people who are going through similar situations. It can provide them with hope and guidance, and let them know that they’re not alone. Reflecting on Life’s Significance These essays usually make you think about the importance of certain moments in life or the impact of certain experiences. They make you look deep within yourself and ponder on the things you learned or how you changed because of those events. Demonstrating Writing Skills Coming up with a gripping narrative essay takes serious writing chops, like vivid descriptions, powerful language, timing, and organization. It’s an opportunity for writers to show off their story-telling abilities. Preserving Personal History Sometimes narrative essays are used to record experiences and special moments that have an emotional resonance. They can be used to preserve individual memories or for future generations to look back on. Cultural and Societal Exploration Personal stories can look at cultural or social aspects, giving us an insight into customs, opinions, or social interactions seen through someone’s own experience. Format of a Narrative Essay Narrative essays are quite flexible in terms of format, which allows the writer to tell a story in a creative and compelling way. Here’s a quick breakdown of the narrative essay format, along with some examples: Introduction Set the scene and introduce the story. Engage the reader and establish the tone of the narrative. Hook: Start with a captivating opening line to grab the reader’s attention. For instance: Example:  “The scorching sun beat down on us as we trekked through the desert, our water supply dwindling.” Background Information: Provide necessary context or background without giving away the entire story. Example:  “It was the summer of 2015 when I embarked on a life-changing journey to…” Thesis Statement or Narrative Purpose Present the main idea or the central message of the essay. Offer a glimpse of what the reader can expect from the narrative. Thesis Statement: This isn’t as rigid as in other essays but can be a sentence summarizing the essence of the story. Example:  “Little did I know, that seemingly ordinary hike would teach me invaluable lessons about resilience and friendship.” Body Paragraphs Present the sequence of events in chronological order. Develop characters, setting, conflict, and resolution. Story Progression : Describe events in the order they occurred, focusing on details that evoke emotions and create vivid imagery. Example : Detail the trek through the desert, the challenges faced, interactions with fellow hikers, and the pivotal moments. Character Development : Introduce characters and their roles in the story. Show their emotions, thoughts, and actions. Example : Describe how each character reacted to the dwindling water supply and supported each other through adversity. Dialogue and Interactions : Use dialogue to bring the story to life and reveal character personalities. Example : “Sarah handed me her last bottle of water, saying, ‘We’re in this together.'” Reach the peak of the story, the moment of highest tension or significance. Turning Point: Highlight the most crucial moment or realization in the narrative. Example:  “As the sun dipped below the horizon and hope seemed lost, a distant sound caught our attention—the rescue team’s helicopters.” Provide closure to the story. Reflect on the significance of the experience and its impact. Reflection : Summarize the key lessons learned or insights gained from the experience. Example : “That hike taught me the true meaning of resilience and the invaluable support of friendship in challenging times.” Closing Thought : End with a memorable line that reinforces the narrative’s message or leaves a lasting impression. Example : “As we boarded the helicopters, I knew this adventure would forever be etched in my heart.” Example Summary: Imagine a narrative about surviving a challenging hike through the desert, emphasizing the bonds formed and lessons learned. The narrative essay structure might look like starting with an engaging scene, narrating the hardships faced, showcasing the characters’ resilience, and culminating in a powerful realization about friendship and endurance. Different Types of Narrative Essays There are a bunch of different types of narrative essays – each one focuses on different elements of storytelling and has its own purpose. Here’s a breakdown of the narrative essay types and what they mean. Personal Narrative Description : Tells a personal story or experience from the writer’s life. Purpose: Reflects on personal growth, lessons learned, or significant moments. Example of Narrative Essay Types: Topic : “The Day I Conquered My Fear of Public Speaking” Focus: Details the experience, emotions, and eventual triumph over a fear of public speaking during a pivotal event. Descriptive Narrative Description : Emphasizes vivid details and sensory imagery. Purpose : Creates a sensory experience, painting a vivid picture for the reader. Topic : “A Walk Through the Enchanted Forest” Focus : Paints a detailed picture of the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings experienced during a walk through a mystical forest. Autobiographical Narrative Description: Chronicles significant events or moments from the writer’s life. Purpose: Provides insights into the writer’s life, experiences, and growth. Topic: “Lessons from My Childhood: How My Grandmother Shaped Who I Am” Focus: Explores pivotal moments and lessons learned from interactions with a significant family member. Experiential Narrative Description: Relays experiences beyond the writer’s personal life. Purpose: Shares experiences, travels, or events from a broader perspective. Topic: “Volunteering in a Remote Village: A Journey of Empathy” Focus: Chronicles the writer’s volunteering experience, highlighting interactions with a community and personal growth. Literary Narrative Description: Incorporates literary elements like symbolism, allegory, or thematic explorations. Purpose: Uses storytelling for deeper explorations of themes or concepts. Topic: “The Symbolism of the Red Door: A Journey Through Change” Focus: Uses a red door as a symbol, exploring its significance in the narrator’s life and the theme of transition. Historical Narrative Description: Recounts historical events or periods through a personal lens. Purpose: Presents history through personal experiences or perspectives. Topic: “A Grandfather’s Tales: Living Through the Great Depression” Focus: Shares personal stories from a family member who lived through a historical era, offering insights into that period. Digital or Multimedia Narrative Description: Incorporates multimedia elements like images, videos, or audio to tell a story. Purpose: Explores storytelling through various digital platforms or formats. Topic: “A Travel Diary: Exploring Europe Through Vlogs” Focus: Combines video clips, photos, and personal narration to document a travel experience. How to Choose a Topic for Your Narrative Essay? Selecting a compelling topic for your narrative essay is crucial as it sets the stage for your storytelling. Choosing a boring topic is one of the narrative essay mistakes to avoid . Here’s a detailed guide on how to choose the right topic: Reflect on Personal Experiences Significant Moments: Moments that had a profound impact on your life or shaped your perspective. Example: A moment of triumph, overcoming a fear, a life-changing decision, or an unforgettable experience. Emotional Resonance: Events that evoke strong emotions or feelings. Example: Joy, fear, sadness, excitement, or moments of realization. Lessons Learned: Experiences that taught you valuable lessons or brought about personal growth. Example: Challenges that led to personal development, shifts in mindset, or newfound insights. Explore Unique Perspectives Uncommon Experiences: Unique or unconventional experiences that might captivate the reader’s interest. Example: Unusual travels, interactions with different cultures, or uncommon hobbies. Different Points of View: Stories from others’ perspectives that impacted you deeply. Example: A family member’s story, a friend’s experience, or a historical event from a personal lens. Focus on Specific Themes or Concepts Themes or Concepts of Interest: Themes or ideas you want to explore through storytelling. Example: Friendship, resilience, identity, cultural diversity, or personal transformation. Symbolism or Metaphor: Using symbols or metaphors as the core of your narrative. Example: Exploring the symbolism of an object or a place in relation to a broader theme. Consider Your Audience and Purpose Relevance to Your Audience: Topics that resonate with your audience’s interests or experiences. Example: Choose a relatable theme or experience that your readers might connect with emotionally. Impact or Message: What message or insight do you want to convey through your story? Example: Choose a topic that aligns with the message or lesson you aim to impart to your readers. Brainstorm and Evaluate Ideas Free Writing or Mind Mapping: Process: Write down all potential ideas without filtering. Mind maps or free-writing exercises can help generate diverse ideas. Evaluate Feasibility: The depth of the story, the availability of vivid details, and your personal connection to the topic. Imagine you’re considering topics for a narrative essay. You reflect on your experiences and decide to explore the topic of “Overcoming Stage Fright: How a School Play Changed My Perspective.” This topic resonates because it involves a significant challenge you faced and the personal growth it brought about. Narrative Essay Topics 50 easy narrative essay topics. Learning to Ride a Bike My First Day of School A Surprise Birthday Party The Day I Got Lost Visiting a Haunted House An Encounter with a Wild Animal My Favorite Childhood Toy The Best Vacation I Ever Had An Unforgettable Family Gathering Conquering a Fear of Heights A Special Gift I Received Moving to a New City The Most Memorable Meal Getting Caught in a Rainstorm An Act of Kindness I Witnessed The First Time I Cooked a Meal My Experience with a New Hobby The Day I Met My Best Friend A Hike in the Mountains Learning a New Language An Embarrassing Moment Dealing with a Bully My First Job Interview A Sporting Event I Attended The Scariest Dream I Had Helping a Stranger The Joy of Achieving a Goal A Road Trip Adventure Overcoming a Personal Challenge The Significance of a Family Tradition An Unusual Pet I Owned A Misunderstanding with a Friend Exploring an Abandoned Building My Favorite Book and Why The Impact of a Role Model A Cultural Celebration I Participated In A Valuable Lesson from a Teacher A Trip to the Zoo An Unplanned Adventure Volunteering Experience A Moment of Forgiveness A Decision I Regretted A Special Talent I Have The Importance of Family Traditions The Thrill of Performing on Stage A Moment of Sudden Inspiration The Meaning of Home Learning to Play a Musical Instrument A Childhood Memory at the Park Witnessing a Beautiful Sunset Narrative Essay Topics for College Students Discovering a New Passion Overcoming Academic Challenges Navigating Cultural Differences Embracing Independence: Moving Away from Home Exploring Career Aspirations Coping with Stress in College The Impact of a Mentor in My Life Balancing Work and Studies Facing a Fear of Public Speaking Exploring a Semester Abroad The Evolution of My Study Habits Volunteering Experience That Changed My Perspective The Role of Technology in Education Finding Balance: Social Life vs. Academics Learning a New Skill Outside the Classroom Reflecting on Freshman Year Challenges The Joys and Struggles of Group Projects My Experience with Internship or Work Placement Challenges of Time Management in College Redefining Success Beyond Grades The Influence of Literature on My Thinking The Impact of Social Media on College Life Overcoming Procrastination Lessons from a Leadership Role Exploring Diversity on Campus Exploring Passion for Environmental Conservation An Eye-Opening Course That Changed My Perspective Living with Roommates: Challenges and Lessons The Significance of Extracurricular Activities The Influence of a Professor on My Academic Journey Discussing Mental Health in College The Evolution of My Career Goals Confronting Personal Biases Through Education The Experience of Attending a Conference or Symposium Challenges Faced by Non-Native English Speakers in College The Impact of Traveling During Breaks Exploring Identity: Cultural or Personal The Impact of Music or Art on My Life Addressing Diversity in the Classroom Exploring Entrepreneurial Ambitions My Experience with Research Projects Overcoming Impostor Syndrome in College The Importance of Networking in College Finding Resilience During Tough Times The Impact of Global Issues on Local Perspectives The Influence of Family Expectations on Education Lessons from a Part-Time Job Exploring the College Sports Culture The Role of Technology in Modern Education The Journey of Self-Discovery Through Education Narrative Essay Comparison Narrative essay vs. descriptive essay. Here’s our first narrative essay comparison! While both narrative and descriptive essays focus on vividly portraying a subject or an event, they differ in their primary objectives and approaches. Now, let’s delve into the nuances of comparison on narrative essays. Narrative Essay: Storytelling: Focuses on narrating a personal experience or event. Chronological Order: Follows a structured timeline of events to tell a story. Message or Lesson: Often includes a central message, moral, or lesson learned from the experience. Engagement: Aims to captivate the reader through a compelling storyline and character development. First-Person Perspective: Typically narrated from the writer’s point of view, using “I” and expressing personal emotions and thoughts. Plot Development: Emphasizes a plot with a beginning, middle, climax, and resolution. Character Development: Focuses on describing characters, their interactions, emotions, and growth. Conflict or Challenge: Usually involves a central conflict or challenge that drives the narrative forward. Dialogue: Incorporates conversations to bring characters and their interactions to life. Reflection: Concludes with reflection or insight gained from the experience. Descriptive Essay: Vivid Description: Aims to vividly depict a person, place, object, or event. Imagery and Details: Focuses on sensory details to create a vivid image in the reader’s mind. Emotion through Description: Uses descriptive language to evoke emotions and engage the reader’s senses. Painting a Picture: Creates a sensory-rich description allowing the reader to visualize the subject. Imagery and Sensory Details: Focuses on providing rich sensory descriptions, using vivid language and adjectives. Point of Focus: Concentrates on describing a specific subject or scene in detail. Spatial Organization: Often employs spatial organization to describe from one area or aspect to another. Objective Observations: Typically avoids the use of personal opinions or emotions; instead, the focus remains on providing a detailed and objective description. Comparison: Focus: Narrative essays emphasize storytelling, while descriptive essays focus on vividly describing a subject or scene. Perspective: Narrative essays are often written from a first-person perspective, while descriptive essays may use a more objective viewpoint. Purpose: Narrative essays aim to convey a message or lesson through a story, while descriptive essays aim to paint a detailed picture for the reader without necessarily conveying a specific message. Narrative Essay vs. Argumentative Essay The narrative essay and the argumentative essay serve distinct purposes and employ different approaches: Engagement and Emotion: Aims to captivate the reader through a compelling story. Reflective: Often includes reflection on the significance of the experience or lessons learned. First-Person Perspective: Typically narrated from the writer’s point of view, sharing personal emotions and thoughts. Plot Development: Emphasizes a storyline with a beginning, middle, climax, and resolution. Message or Lesson: Conveys a central message, moral, or insight derived from the experience. Argumentative Essay: Persuasion and Argumentation: Aims to persuade the reader to adopt the writer’s viewpoint on a specific topic. Logical Reasoning: Presents evidence, facts, and reasoning to support a particular argument or stance. Debate and Counterarguments: Acknowledge opposing views and counter them with evidence and reasoning. Thesis Statement: Includes a clear thesis statement that outlines the writer’s position on the topic. Thesis and Evidence: Starts with a strong thesis statement and supports it with factual evidence, statistics, expert opinions, or logical reasoning. Counterarguments: Addresses opposing viewpoints and provides rebuttals with evidence. Logical Structure: Follows a logical structure with an introduction, body paragraphs presenting arguments and evidence, and a conclusion reaffirming the thesis. Formal Language: Uses formal language and avoids personal anecdotes or emotional appeals. Objective: Argumentative essays focus on presenting a logical argument supported by evidence, while narrative essays prioritize storytelling and personal reflection. Purpose: Argumentative essays aim to persuade and convince the reader of a particular viewpoint, while narrative essays aim to engage, entertain, and share personal experiences. Structure: Narrative essays follow a storytelling structure with character development and plot, while argumentative essays follow a more formal, structured approach with logical arguments and evidence. In essence, while both essays involve writing and presenting information, the narrative essay focuses on sharing a personal experience, whereas the argumentative essay aims to persuade the audience by presenting a well-supported argument. Narrative Essay vs. Personal Essay While there can be an overlap between narrative and personal essays, they have distinctive characteristics: Storytelling: Emphasizes recounting a specific experience or event in a structured narrative form. Engagement through Story: Aims to engage the reader through a compelling story with characters, plot, and a central theme or message. Reflective: Often includes reflection on the significance of the experience and the lessons learned. First-Person Perspective: Typically narrated from the writer’s viewpoint, expressing personal emotions and thoughts. Plot Development: Focuses on developing a storyline with a clear beginning, middle, climax, and resolution. Character Development: Includes descriptions of characters, their interactions, emotions, and growth. Central Message: Conveys a central message, moral, or insight derived from the experience. Personal Essay: Exploration of Ideas or Themes: Explores personal ideas, opinions, or reflections on a particular topic or subject. Expression of Thoughts and Opinions: Expresses the writer’s thoughts, feelings, and perspectives on a specific subject matter. Reflection and Introspection: Often involves self-reflection and introspection on personal experiences, beliefs, or values. Varied Structure and Content: Can encompass various forms, including memoirs, personal anecdotes, or reflections on life experiences. Flexibility in Structure: Allows for diverse structures and forms based on the writer’s intent, which could be narrative-like or more reflective. Theme-Centric Writing: Focuses on exploring a central theme or idea, with personal anecdotes or experiences supporting and illustrating the theme. Expressive Language: Utilizes descriptive and expressive language to convey personal perspectives, emotions, and opinions. Focus: Narrative essays primarily focus on storytelling through a structured narrative, while personal essays encompass a broader range of personal expression, which can include storytelling but isn’t limited to it. Structure: Narrative essays have a more structured plot development with characters and a clear sequence of events, while personal essays might adopt various structures, focusing more on personal reflection, ideas, or themes. Intent: While both involve personal experiences, narrative essays emphasize telling a story with a message or lesson learned, while personal essays aim to explore personal thoughts, feelings, or opinions on a broader range of topics or themes. A narrative essay is more than just telling a story. It’s also meant to engage the reader, get them thinking, and leave a lasting impact. Whether it’s to amuse, motivate, teach, or reflect, these essays are a great way to communicate with your audience. This interesting narrative essay guide was all about letting you understand the narrative essay, its importance, and how can you write one. Order Original Papers & Essays Your First Custom Paper Sample is on Us! Timely Deliveries No Plagiarism & AI 100% Refund Try Our Free Paper Writing Service Related blogs. Connections with Writers and support Privacy and Confidentiality Guarantee Average Quality Score Share full article Advertisement Supported by Professional development 8 Webinars on How to Teach Writing With The New York Times Our library of writing webinars explores how to teach the kinds of real-world writing found in newspapers, including editorials, reviews, profiles, personal narratives and more. By The Learning Network Videos by C. Ross Flatt Are you looking for engaging ways to teach your students about how to share their stories? Are you thinking about bringing a real-world approach to your writing curriculum for the next school year? Have you thought about incorporating multimedia projects, such as podcasts or photography, into your classroom but don’t know where to start? In the eight videos below — all edited versions of previously recorded live webinars — we walk teachers through how to use The New York Times to teach writing using our lesson plans, writing prompts, mentor texts and student contests. Each video focuses on a different genre: argumentative writing, narrative writing, informational/science writing, review writing, profile writing, podcast writing, multimedia creation and reader responses. The videos feature a mix of Learning Network staff, Times journalists, classroom educators and student creators who share their advice for producing writing that is meaningful, engaging and impactful. Please note: Each year we adjust our lineup of student contests. Please stay tuned for our 2022-23 contest calendar. Argumentative Writing Evidenced-based persuasive writing is a core component of middle and high school education, and you can find models of it every day in The Times Opinion section. In this webinar, you’ll hear from an educator who uses Times editorials in his teaching, past winners of our Student Editorial Contest and Katherine Schulten, a Learning Network editor and the author of “ Student Voice: 100 Argument Essays by Teens on Issues That Matter .” They’ll show you how you can use our writing prompts, lesson plans and real-world texts to sharpen your students’ argument-making skills. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber?  Log in . Want all of The Times?  Subscribe . Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices. Personal Narrative Essay [Assignment/Rubric] Kimberly Stelly Overview of Basic Components The personal narrative essay Tells a complete, personal, and factual story that has a purpose, an idea, or a meaning.  This story should have a beginning and an ending, and the story should reflect a personal perspective or viewpoint. Do not make this essay a tirade, diatribe, or rant. Instead, consider this essay an opportunity for self-reflection. Remember that hindsight is 20/20! Features clear organization . This essay should include all of the components of a story: introduction, setting, characters, and a plot (rising action, climax, falling action, and a resolution or conclusion). The more organized your writing is, the easier it is for a reader to understand what is in your head. Paint a picture in the reader’s mind. Use careful, descriptive diction. Consider how dialogue can add authenticity and flavor. Be true to your writer’s voice. Having a writer’s voice is important, but for this essay, having your writing voice is extremely important. Avoid using words that you normally wouldn’t use or writing in a way that isn’t “natural” to you. First-person voice is expected, although be careful to not overuse it. Your writing should be better than your speaking voice since you have time to go back and revise your words; however, your writing should “sound” like you. The reader should hear your voice in his/her/their head. Learning Outcomes Upon successful completion of this assignment, students will create a well-organized personal narrative essay that includes all the essential components of a story, such as an introduction, setting, characters, plot (rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution), and conclusion apply descriptive writing techniques, including the use of vivid diction and dialogue, to paint a clear picture in the reader’s mind and maintain an authentic writer’s voice. evaluate the effectiveness of their drafting by seeking feedback from peers and revising for clarity, organization, tone, and audience awareness. Step One: Choosing a Topic/Prewriting Brainstorm. Imagine you are meeting someone for the first time. This person has asked you to share a story from your life. What story would you pick? Why this story? For your essay to have meaning, focus, and purpose, your story needs to possess all three of these components.  The story can be silly, but think about why that silly story resonates with you. Does this silly story allow the stranger a glimpse into who you are as a person? Pro Tip : Jot down the first five words that come to mind when you think about this assignment. Think about how this story has impacted you/your life/your perspective. Be mindful of your audience; this is not a diary entry. Step Two: Rough Draft Narrow down your topic choices and begin developing your thesis statement. Your thesis establishes the purpose of your essay. Answer the questions: Why and how has this story affected you? Why should the reader care? Work on the structure of your essay. At the heart of your essay, you are sharing a story that has shaped your life in some way. Think about the best way to convey your story. How should you start? What details should you include? Voice and tone are important for keeping your audience in mind. Using slang, informal, or inappropriate language might be offensive or off-putting to the audience. Only use this type of language when the word or phrase is appropriate. Just write! Get your thoughts “down on paper.” Seeing your words on the computer screen is easier than in your head. A rough draft is named “rough” for a reason. Step Three: Editing/Revising Ask someone to read your essay aloud.* Share your essay with someone who doesn’t know anything about what you wrote. As they read, listen for the following words: it, seems, very, a lot, things, stuff. Remove or replace these words from your essay (except for within direct quotes). *You can also read it aloud yourself! Step Four: Peer Editing Exchange essays with a peer . Then, answer the following peer editing questions and prompts. Does the essay have a title? If so, is the title interesting? Does the title need work? Suggestions? Read the introduction. Highlight or underline the thesis. In your own words, what do you think the writer is trying to prove in this essay? What is the purpose of this essay? Does the introduction make you want to read the rest of the paper? Why or why not? Explain your answer. What are the strengths and/or weaknesses of the introduction? Thesis? Read the first sentence of the first body paragraph. In your own words, based on the topic sentence, what is the first body paragraph about? Now, read the rest of the first body paragraph. What details or evidence does the writer provide that supports the thesis? Does the writer connect the evidence to the thesis? Explain your answer. What is your opinion of the first body paragraph? Identify the strengths and/or weaknesses. Now, repeat #6 for the second body paragraph. Repeat #6 for the third body paragraph. If there is no third, write “N/A.” Read the conclusion paragraph. What is your opinion of the conclusion paragraph? What are its strengths and/or weaknesses? Does the writer “wrap up” the essay? Explain your answer. What is the structure of the essay? How did the writer organize the essay? Identify the following plot elements: What is the conflict? What is the climax of the story? What is the turning point or the most significant point of the story? What is the resolution? How did the story end? What did the writer learn? How was the writer impacted? Comment on all of the following: quality of details, dialogue, and organization. Overall, what is your opinion of the essay? What grade would you give this essay? Explain your answer. Remember , take your peer’s comments with a “grain of salt.”  However, be open to those suggestions and comments. Step Five: Revising/Final Draft Before turning in your final draft, take a break from your essay . Give yourself time to look at your essay with “fresh eyes.” Then, look at your essay by its parts. Start with the introduction. Is your thesis clear? The harder your reader has to work to figure out the purpose of your essay, the lower your grade. The goal of a well-written essay is one in which the writer has painted a clear picture. The reader should be able to hear your voice in his/her/their head. Next, look over your body paragraphs . Do you have a topic sentence for each body paragraph? Does the topic sentence convey what each paragraph is about? Do you provide evidence that proves your thesis? How are your body paragraphs organized? Do you have transitions? Are you jumping from one point to another? Do you connect each piece of evidence to your thesis through commentary sentences? Is your evidence vivid in detail? Can the reader visualize through your words what you are writing about? Do you have a conclusion sentence at the end of each body paragraph that “wraps up” the body paragraph and transitions to the next? Now, read over your conclusion paragraph . Does your conclusion paragraph “wrap up” your whole essay? Did you restate and rewrite your thesis, topic sentences, and main points? Do you have a “lesson learned” statement? Writing Suggestions: Improving Your Essay Write in active voice. Try to use active verbs. Avoid beginning a sentence with the following words: that, there, which, conjunctions. Use variety in your sentence structure. Avoid writing in simple sentences all of the time. Avoid using the same word or phrase in the same sentence or the next sentence. Replace the following words: it, seems, very, a lot, things, stuff. Formatting Requirements 12 size font Times New Roman Double-spaced One-inch margins 2-3 typed pages Downloadable Resources (Assignment, Rubric, Outline, Peer Editing) Click here to download a Word Doc version of this assignment: Personal Narrative Essay assignment Click here to download a Word Doc version of the rubric: Personal Narrative Essay rubric Click here to download a Word Doc version of the outline: Personal Narrative Essay outline Click here to download a Word Doc version of the peer editing questions: Personal Narrative Essay peer editing questions Attribution: Stelly, Kimberly. “Personal Narrative Essay [Assignment/Rubric].” Strategies, Skills and Models for Student Success in Writing and Reading Comprehension . College Station: Texas A&M University, 2024. This work is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( CC BY 4.0 ). Personal Narrative Essay [Assignment/Rubric] Copyright © by Kimberly Stelly is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted. 228 COMMENTS A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing Step 2: Study the Structure of a Story. Now that students have a good library of their own personal stories pulled into short-term memory, shift your focus to a more formal study of what a story looks like. Use a diagram to show students a typical story arc like the one below. How to Teach Narrative Writing: 14 Steps (with Pictures) 2. Assign model essays, videos, and podcasts. Giving students examples of narratives to read, watch, and listen to will help them to understand the genre better. Choose narrative models that are age-appropriate for your students. Read, watch, and listen to models in class and have students read some on their own. A Systematic Approach to Teaching Narrative Writing As a middle school language arts teacher, I've developed a systematic approach to writing that helps students improve their storytelling skills. It includes strategies for writing in a variety of genres, such as personal narrative, memoir, and creative nonfiction. And in the revision stage I teach a color-coded approach to analyzing details ... Narrative Writing: A Complete Guide for Teachers and Students A narrative can spark emotion, encourage reflection, and convey meaning when done well. Narratives are a popular genre for students and teachers as they allow the writer to share their imagination, creativity, skill, and understanding of nearly all elements of writing. We occasionally refer to a narrative as 'creative writing' or story writing. Teaching Narrative Writing: 14 Activities to Help Your Students Learn Arrange your students in a circle. The teacher joins the circle. Start the round-robin by reading aloud one of the Narrative Sentence Starter Cards. Moving in a clockwise direction, ask the next person to continue the story. The teacher finishes off the story when it returns to the starting point. Teach Narrative Writing With The New York Times Stories can thrill, wound, delight, uplift and teach. Telling a story vividly and powerfully is a vital skill that is deeply valued across all cultures, past and present — and narrative writing ... How to Teach Narrative Writing: A Step-by-Step Approach Have students fill out a classic plot diagram as they identify and analyze a story's narrative arc. And don't stop at the plot. Guide students through activities and discussions to unpack and understand the other essential elements of a mentor text's story structure, like theme, conflict, and character, too. 4. 7 Great Narrative Lesson Plans Students and Teachers Love Table of Contents. How to Master Narrative Writing in a Single Week. Lesson 1: Generate One Good Story Idea. Lesson 2: Outline. Lesson: 3: Write the First Act. Lesson 4: Write Right to the End. Lesson 5: Edit. Lesson 6: Let That Potboiler Simmer! Lesson 7: The Final Draft. 32 Tips For Teaching Narrative Writing Below are 32 strategies and tips for educators to effectively scaffold and nurture narrative writing capabilities in their students. 1.Brainstorm Ideas: Encourage students to brainstorm various topics, events, or personal experiences that could serve as the foundation for their stories. 2.Understand the Structure: Teach the fundamental ... Teach Narrative Writing with these Easy Steps Lots of prewriting will help them understand where they want their story to go and how they want their narrative writing to unfold. 6. Use your standards. Plan your lessons by going to your standards. Plan out what you want to teach and when. You may need a lesson on writing dialogue or point of view or descriptive writing. 32 Tips for Teaching Narrative Writing Focus your shared writing session on one or two elements of narrative writing. For example, focus on text structure, ideas, characters and setting or vocabulary. Keep it short. This will depend on the year level of your class. 10 -15 minutes is an awesome effort. Teaching Narrative Writing Tips and Activities This helps students focus in on writing more specific details, feelings, and actions when they're writing their narratives. Give the students lots of practice with big events and small moments. With partners and groups, give students an example big event and ask them to come up with sample smaller moments. The Secret to Teaching Narrative Writing Narrative writing (and all types of writing really!) can be tricky to teach and for our students to learn. Even our students can have writer's block. So, how... How to Write a Narrative Essay Interactive example of a narrative essay. An example of a short narrative essay, responding to the prompt "Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself," is shown below. Hover over different parts of the text to see how the structure works. Narrative essay example. Steps for Teaching Narrative Writing in the Primary Classroom 1st Step: Use Mentor Texts. Mentor texts are a great way to introduce narrative writing to your little learners. Choose a book with a clear narrative structure like Guji Guji by Chih-Yuan Chen. I love using Storyline Online for read alouds because they are easy to assign to virtual students and the actors they choose are great at telling stories. How to Teach Narrative Writing Finally, reread your work aloud to ensure it makes sense and that the events are in the correct order. Check for any silly mistakes and come up with a fitting title! 3. Use Anchor Charts. You want your students to know that when they write a narrative piece they are writing a story to entertain the reader. How to Teach Narrative Writing in 2nd Grade with Spectacular Results Outline: By second grade, students should be able to write a topic sentence, 3-4 event sentences WITH details, and a closing sentence. This means student writing should be anywhere from 5-10 sentences at least. However, many students are ready to write in paragraphs by second grade and should be encouraged to do so by adding more detail ... How to Teach Narrative Writing in High School Make classroom displays. Write individual mini-books. Enter writing competitions. Create class books. Read work out in assembly. Record it as a video. Publish on the school's social media accounts or website. Send it to the author whose work inspired them. The possibilities for purposeful writing are endless. Teaching Narrative Writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Grade As you can see in the chart below, students are expected to do a little bit more with narrative writing as they grow as writers from 1 st to 3 rd grade. So, 1 st grade focuses on developing sequenced events (beginning, middle, end). With 2 nd and 3 rd grade, the focus is creating a hook/opening, events (beginning, middle, end), and a closing. A Complete Narrative Essay Guide Purpose: Reach the peak of the story, the moment of highest tension or significance. Elements: Turning Point: Highlight the most crucial moment or realization in the narrative. Example: "As the sun dipped below the horizon and hope seemed lost, a distant sound caught our attention—the rescue team's helicopters.". How to Write a Narrative Essay in 5 Steps Step 1: Topic choice (or prompt given) The first step in writing a narrative essay is to determine the topic. Sometimes, your topic is chosen for you in the form of a prompt. You might map out the topics you want to mention in the essay or think through each point you'd like to make to see how each will fit into the allotted word count (if ... 8 Webinars on How to Teach Writing With The New York Times In this webinar, you'll learn how to write a review from the experts: the arts and culture critics of The New York Times. A.O. Scott, Jon Pareles, Jennifer Szalai and Maya Phillips share their ... Personal Narrative Essay [Assignment/Rubric] The personal narrative essay. Tells a complete, personal, and factual story that has a purpose, an idea, or a meaning. This story should have a beginning and an ending, and the story should reflect a personal perspective or viewpoint. Do not make this essay a tirade, diatribe, or rant. Instead, consider this essay an opportunity for self ... Teaching Narrative Writing: Introductions When teaching narrative writing introductions, here is a step-by-step guide. 1. Use a Mentor Text . Introduce students to what narrative writing is using the books mentioned in this great post: 13 Mentor Texts for Teaching Narrative Writing. 2. Set the hook-Engaging Narrative Writing Introductions. Teach students how to "hook" their readers ... essay homework paper phd project resume review study thesis