LESSON EIGHT: Personal Narrative

LESSON DESCRIPTION

Students write a brief personal narrative that describes an event in their lives that demonstrates courage, perseverance, or personal responsibility.

GRADE-LEVEL EXPECTATIONS

W2A      Write a personal narrative text that chronicles a sequence of events and focuses on the development of a single event.

R2C         Use details from the text to make inferences.

LESSON MATERIALS

§         Sources of literature

o           The Sign of the Beaver

§         Supplies 

o        Writing Workshop folders

o        Writing materials

§         Handouts provided

o        None

§         Words to know

o        inference

o        narrative

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT 

Personal narrative. Scoring guide provided.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

1.        Writing workshop mini-lesson: brainstorm a list of three events from a student’s life that demonstrates courage, perseverance, and/or personal responsibility, such as students have read about in this unit. Thinking aloud, narrow your list down to one topic that the student feels strongly about. Brainstorm a list of things that occurred in logical sequence during the event and start to write a draft of this personal narrative.

2.        Students brainstorm own ideas and begin to write the first draft of their personal narratives.

3.        Students read chapters 19-21 of The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare and continue working on the bookmark glossary and the process of choosing 10 of their favorite words from the book.