Narrative Writing: Beginning A Story



We had a lot of fun today in Writer's Workshop! The boys and girls always love when it's time to work with their narratives :) Now that they have learned to create quick sketches and quick notes, they are ready to learn how to write a story/narrative beginning, middle, and end- all with flowing transitions.  The 6 strategies/methods above give students tools for beginning their story narratives- no small process because the beginning is where an author grabs the reader!

The goal of providing students with 6 different ways to start a story is not to limit them but to give practice so that they may become more aware of how narratives start and eventually develop their own approaches : )

We read through the 6 methods as a class and then talked about the similarities and differences.  Then we shared which beginning we liked the best.  I told the kids that I preferred the “Interesting Comment” method for the particular story title of “Soccer Superstar”.  Then I took out the Quick Sketch that I’d done as an example with the kids and modeled how to turn it into full sentences that amount to the beginning of a story.  There is a lot of thinking and playing with organization- it’s important that the students learn how to consider what a reader would thinking as they read.

Below is one example of a student’s work.  Their Quick Sketch is on the right and how they chose to begin their narrative is on the left.  We had 5 students who were able to share their Quick Sketches and beginnings… and many more who haven’t had a chance yet : )