Sample Narrative Unit Teaching Plan
This is a description of my teaching sequence for a workshop-style narrative writing unit. The unit was designed as the first unit in a semester-long composition course for high school juniors. It can be easily adjusted to be a stand alone unit for younger learners.
Course Foundations
Most writing classes include three segments: a 10-minute warm-up, one or two targeted mini-lessons (introduce a new skill, practice a developing skill, read a mentor text or a mentor excerpt, or model process), and at least 20 minutes of independent writing and conference time. We study at least 3 model essays in a unit, and combine model essay studies with mini-lessons for specific skills. I teach skills when students are ready to implement them in their writing, so each lesson is targeted to where students are in their writing process. I also make space for great conversations and for the sharing of student work. This helps to create a safe learning environment in which students are comfortable taking risks.
Day 1: Introduction to Writing
- Define and Discuss: What is an essay? Students define and characterize essays. Discuss their definitions, suggesting that essays can work by defying almost every convention they have come up with. Read article (Forward to Best American Essays 1998) and discuss.
- Introductory Assignment: “Write a letter of introduction to Mrs. Weggelaar. Tell her something important about who you are. Make this a sample of your best writing.” This is a baseline pre-assessment. Show students sample letter essays and the scoring rubric and then give them time in class to draft the essay.
Stage One: Finding a Topic and Writing a Rough Draft
- Teach powerful tools for the early drafting process. Teach them how to brainstorm, including how to quickwrite/freewrite. Discuss the concept of writing in stages and what should be revised and when (early in the process is content and theme, then focus on organization and detail, then polish with a focus on word choice, sentence fluency, and grammar). Emphasize how every writer’s process is different and this is just a starting point.
- Use daily warm-ups and tools that help readers find a topic to write about. Read articles or show videos of writers talking about writing. Make space to just talk about how writers find topics to write about.
- Teach the foundation of good writing: show, don’t’ tell through short exercises.
- Read examples of strong narratives. Begin creating a list of strong elements of narrative writing.
- Give students daily time to begin drafting their essays. Circulate during that time, keeping an eye out for students who are struggling to find a topic or produce writing. Begin conferencing when necessary, limiting sessions to 1-3 minutes at a time.
Stage 2: Revising a Very Rough Draft
- Continue to talk about revision. Discuss what’s important about this stage of writing and what can be ignored until later.
- Continue reading examples of or excerpts from strong narratives. Use narrative examples as opportunities to discuss pacing, engaging detail, etc.
- Model and teach writing revision strategies.
- Discuss leads and conclusions. Look at many examples and make lists of ways to begin and ways to end. Ask students to write several potential leads for their essay.
- Show examples of essays with creative pacing and strong dialogue.
- Each class should continue to include significant in-class writing time with focused teacher-student conference time.
Stage 3: Polishing
- Students have revised for content and organization, so they are now considering the finer details of their writing. Start discussing details such as word choice, titles, and punctuation.
- Assign short revision activities that prompt students to identify “soft” language and substitute more powerful nouns and verbs.
- Continue using models of good craft and modeling the writing process.
- Give students an editing toolbox of strategies. Remind them to read everything aloud, for example. Have them make personal grammatical checklists. Teach them how to peer review.