4.3.W.1 ​

Students will compose narratives reflecting real or imagined experiences that:

• include plots with a climax and resolution

• include developed characters who overcome conflicts and use dialogue

• use a consistent point of view

• unfold in chronological sequence

• use sentence variety, sensory details, and vivid language to create interest

• model literary elements and/or literary devices from mentor texts

• Students apply understanding of strong narrative characteristics to write fictional narratives.

• Students apply understanding of strong narrative characteristics to write personal narratives.

• Students apply understanding of types of characters in their writing.

• Students write narratives with main and secondary characters.

• Students develop the main and secondary settings in their stories.

• Students choose a problem and solution in their writing.

• Students write their stories in sequential order.

• Students choose a point of view to tell their stories from.

• Students revise their narrative drafts to include leads, dialogue, suspense, sensory details, vivid verbs, and figurative language.

• Teachers review and demonstrate the characteristics of a strong narrative piece.

• Teachers review terms fictional narrative and personal narrative and distinguish differences between the two styles of writing. 

• Teachers model differences in types of characters in personal narratives and fictional narratives (i.e., fictional narratives can be realistic or unrealistic, and personal narratives focus on student memory and experience).

• Teachers instruct students on how to create main and secondary characters in their writing.

• Teachers model creating a main setting and secondary settings.

• Teachers model how to create a problem for a narrative story. 

• Teachers assist students in writing their stories in sequential order.

• Teachers demonstrate brainstorming what a story would be like if told through different points of view (main character, secondary character, narrator). 

• Teachers instruct students on adding interest to their stories by utilizing leads when revising their stories. 

• Teachers introduce developing characters in narratives through providing details that show a character’s traits, adding dialogue for the characters, and providing conflicts for the character to overcome. 

• Teachers introduce and explicitly model how to add suspense to a narrative piece through rising action and climax.

• Teachers explicitly teach adding sensory details to writing that replaces telling language with showing language (e.g.,  instead of telling the character is in the kitchen, using the five senses to describe where the character is).

• Teachers demonstrate revising a narrative by choosing vivid verbs to add interest. 

• Teachers model revising writing to include figurative language.

• Teachers provide students opportunities to create narrative drafts.

• Teachers provide students opportunities to receive feedback on their writing.

When students struggle with planning their stories, teachers can...

• provide planning templates and graphic organizers to assist students with thinking through their stories.

• assist students in narrowing down the moment they want to write about in a personal narrative.

• have students practice telling their story orally.

• provide students with fictional narrative or personal narrative prompts.

When students struggle to develop their characters, teachers can...

• highlight specific places in their writing that would be good to add character details.

• orally ask students questions about their characters to get students thinking about the details.

• provide opportunities for students to receive peer feedback on their characters.

When students struggle with telling the setting instead of showing the setting, teachers can...

• increase modeling and facilitate discussion of how to make the reader feel like they are in the story through using the five senses.

• highlight places in their story where they could include more sensory details.

• Figurative Language: writing or speech not meant to be taken literally but used to express ideas in vivid or imaginative ways (e.g., simile, metaphor, personification, imagery, hyperbole, idiom).

• Narrative Writing: writing that tells a story and is often anecdotal, experiential, and personal.

• Plot: the sequence of events or actions in a literary text.

• Point of View: the way in which an author reveals a viewpoint or perspective through characters, ideas, events, and/or narration.Objective Code: topic

• 4.2.W.1: Prewrite and organize drafts 

•  4.4.W.2: Use purposeful vocabulary in writing