Personal Narrative Writing Unit {My Life is a Story}
This Personal Narrative Unit is perfect for kicking off Writer’s Workshop at the beginning of the year, while also providing enough content to support the Narrative Writing Common Core Standard at any other point in the school year. The lessons in this unit will build excitement for writing and set foundations for the rest of your academic year. This unit also contains lifelong tools which could supplement other writing units and the overall writing process.
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The content in the unit support 4 basic goals:
- Get students excited about writing!
- Build a community of writers.
- Build confidence in the writers.
- Find ways to craft our own life stories
What this Unit Includes
*Writing Unit Calendar with Teaching Points*Blank Planning Calendar*Mentor Text Suggestions and Links*20 Lesson Ideas for the Unit
(The lessons in this unit are NOT always in a specific lesson template or written to precisely tell you what to do. However, there are detailed descriptions and ideas for each teaching point, including how the teacher can model, how students will practice, and what students will do independently. This unit will look different in every classroom as your own personal teaching style, experience, and perspective filters through. I have included a brief explanation for each teaching point and how it would/could look in the classroom. I have also noted when to use the anchor charts for each day as well as included pictures of notebook work that may help also. This unit of resources will hopefully “fill your fist” as Katie Wood Ray would say, with writing strategies to help your writers build a love for writing! You can check out my blog for anchor chart ideas and information on teaching writing.
*20+ Writing Notebook Anchor Charts for the Writer’s Notebook to help support applying the writing strategies into their work by providing anchor charts at your students’ fingertips.
*20 Anchor Charts to be used for: teaching the lesson, laminated as posters, put in sheet protectors and on a binder ring as part of your writing center or any other creative way you find use for them!
*Narrative Writing Checklist and Grading Rubric
*Standards for 3rd-5th grades (to glue in notebook)
*Publishing Paper
Whether you are using this in your classroom to start off the year or as a way to improve your students’ writing process, I hope you and your students enjoy this unit as much as we did! If you have any further questions or needs I would love to hear from you!
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-Jessica
