Encourage narrative writing with a clever exercise. Class members watch episodes from movies and describe what happened to a character, including details about the setting, plot, and characters. Writers then craft a narrative about a significant episode in their life, enriching their tale with the same sort of details that enable readers to visualize the event.

Concepts

Narrative Writing, descriptive writing, autobiographical writing, setting, characterization, target audiences, plot development, plot

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Additional Tags

english language arts

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Instructional Ideas

• Begin the anecdotal biography assignment by asking individuals to illustrate 10 cartoon panels representing stories they are willing to share 
• As class members share their drawings, partners ask questions that help writers remember details they can incorporate in their narratives
• Share a story from your own cartoon panel with no details and have class members ask question that force you to add the missing details

Classroom Considerations

• Writers should be familiar with showing writing and the writing process

Pros

• The six-page packet includes a list of suggested episodes from movies that are suitable for the narrative assignment
• The attached Word documents may be edited

Cons

• No rubric is included

Common Core

W.6.3.a W.7.3.a W.8.3.a W.9-10.3.a W.11-12.3.a