PBS
Exploring First-Person Narrative
If you really want to know, this is a terrific lesson all about narratives, which is just a fancy way of saying telling stories. And you get to do it without being phony or anything. My favorite part is that you get to read a passage...
Curated OER
Girls Around the World: Communicating Through First-Person Narratives
Teams select a society to investigate and create a chart comparing and contrasting the status of girls in that society with their own. They then craft and illustrate a personal narrative written from the point of view of a girl living in...
Curated OER
The Odyssey: Narrative Writing
Help readers make a personal connection to Homer's The Odyssey with a narrative writing assignment. Scholars select one of three prompts and craft a first-person narrative rich in sensory details that describes an experience they had...
Thoughtful Education Press
Personal Narratives: Learning from Lessons Life Teaches Us
"First Appearance," Mark Twain's tale about overcoming stage fright, serves as a model of a personal narrative and gets young writers thinking about milestones in their own lives. After examining student models and considering the...
PBS
The Power of Personal Narrative
Personal narratives are powerful things. Whether told from the first-person or third-person point of view, whether in the form of an essay, a short story, novel, or video, whether fiction or fact, they capture readers and give them...
Curated OER
Writing a Personal Narrative
What is the difference between a news story and a personal narrative? This plan has learners write a personal narrative using the topic of service projects in their community. Consider completing a cross-curricular extension by bringing...
Curated OER
Personal Narratives
Students complete writing lessons to help students select a writing topic, prepare a writing plan, and create an interesting beginning. In this personal narratives lesson, students complete intensive modeling activities to write their...
Curated OER
Planning and Drafting a Personal Narrative
Bring your learners together to write a class narrative about the first day of school. Start off by teaching them about sequence with a quick oral activity. Then, work together to fill out a story map. Finally, compose the class...
University of Houston
Personal Narratives: Writing, Revising, and Publishing (WRAP)
Writing is a process, and lesson planning is, too! A personal narrative unit stresses the writing process to pupils, who first examine various stories and poems as a model of autobiographical writing and then write their own stories....
Scholastic
Narrative Writing
If you're looking to start a unit based around narrative writing, make sure to consider this resource while you're planning. This book covers five topics: writing personal narratives, writing narratives about others, writing narratives...
Curated OER
Marking Time
Two narrative excerpts tell the same story from different points of view. In the first excerpt (first person), sequencing words and phrases are bolded and learners write down what the bold type does. The second excerpt is in third...
Core Knowledge Foundation
First Grade Skills Unit 6
A unit explores alternative spellings, ways to include nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and prepositions in sentences, and writing personal narratives. Over 25 lessons, first graders participate in whole group and small group instruction....
Curated OER
A Handmade House Book with Student Writing
Use this activity for your bookmaking project. First, young writers work on making an accordion fold house book. After composing a variety of pieces of writing, they can use their book to store their writing. The structure is ideal for a...
Curated OER
Writing a Personal Narrative
Students learn characteristics of an effective personal narrative. In this personal narrative lesson, students discover ways to show rather than tell, adding richness and detail to their writing. Students evaluate a news article for...
Write Away!
Voices In the Park
Explore the impact a narrator's point of view has on a story with a reading of the children's book, Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne. Written in four different voices, the story is told and retold from different perspectives to...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing
Binoculars are used as a metaphor for good descriptive writing. Class members first view a small picture and then an enlarged view of the same image in which the details come into focus. Next, learners examine a paragraph lacking sensory...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Poems that Tell a Story: Narrative and Persona in the Poetry of Robert Frost
Dig in deeper with Robert Frost's, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Learners will read and discuss poems by Robert Frost and learn the meaning of terms such as narrative and personal. They journal, collaborate, and present poetry...
Curated OER
Facing the Ghosts of Our Past
A reading of a New York Times review of the movie Beloved launches research into how the Civil War affected the lives of people living during this period. Creative thinkers select a person from an included list of historical figures and...
Curated OER
Writing in First and Third Person
Explore narrative writing by participating in a role-playing activity. In this perspective lesson plan, learners define first and third person in writing and discuss how it changes the mood of the reader. The first activity has pupils...
Curated OER
Mapping Personal Narratives
Second graders write a personal narrative using webs they created and a story map worksheet. For this personal narrative lesson plan, 2nd graders make lists of ideas to write about and pick one to focus on.
Missouri Department of Elementary
The Clique
Mean girls and bully packs are favorite topic for films and TV shows that focus on the destructive power of cliques. High school freshmen are asked to reflect on both the positive and negative aspects of cliques by reading a short...
Curated OER
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Written by Himself
The narrative works of Frederick Douglass engage learners in the topic of slavery. They will experience American history in a new way, a Douglass expresses his thoughts in his own words. Pupils then interpret this literary work.
Facing History and Ourselves
Becoming Ourselves
Here's a great way to build community during the first days of the new school year. Participants read personal narratives, then craft and share their stories with others.
Curated OER
Lesson Plan: Humans and the Land
Art acts as inspiration for a conversation about human impact on the environment and creative writing. The class examines three pieces, looking for evidence of human impact on the landscape. They then write a first-person narrative, from...