Lesson 1: Tell Me A Story

 Lesson Plan

Tuning In

• Read the narrative text, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, to the class. Alternatively, watch a video animation of the text on YouTube. After watching, ask the students:
  • What type of text is this? How do you know?
  • Why do you think the author wrote this story?
  • Do you like this story? Why or why not?

Teacher Instruction

• Discuss slide 5 of the Developing Narrative Writing Skills PowerPoint. Ask the students to share some of their most loved stories with the class. Encourage the students to try and group these stories into categories e.g. fairy tales, traditional tales, short stories, novels.
• Ask the students the question: What makes a great story? As a class, brainstorm a list of narrative text features that contribute to the enjoyment of a story e.g. interesting characters, funny scenes, an exciting plot. Create a mind map on the board to display the students’ ideas.
• Discuss the key vocabulary words from the Narrative Writing Word Wall. Define any new or unusual vocabulary for the students.

Guided/Independent Learning

• Ask the students to sit in a large circle. Explain that they are going to work together as a class to create a story.
• Select a card from the Narrative Sentence Starter Cards. Show the students the visual prompt and read out the opening sentence. Choose a student to add a sentence to follow this opening sentence. Progressing around the circle, allow each student to add a sentence to build the story. Ensure that the students know that the last student in the circle must add a sentence which ends the story.
• Once the students have created their story, ask questions such as:
  • Was our story funny? Scary? Interesting? Thrilling?
  • Did our story teach, inform or entertain?
  • What information did we include?
• Select a different card and repeat the activity.

Wrapping Up

• To review the content of the lesson, ask the students:
  • What is the purpose of a narrative text?
  • What types of stories do we enjoy reading?
  • What makes a story great?

 Differentiation

Extending Students

• Encourage more confident students to assume a more active role in group work e.g. choosing a starter card and contributing the first sentence to the class story.

Supporting Students

• Support less confident students during group work, encouraging them to participate at a level at which they feel comfortable.

 Assessment Strategies

Suggested Assessment Strategies

• used strategic whole class or individual questioning
• observed student participation during learning activities
• recorded student progress on a checklist
• annotated student work samples
• collected and reviewed student work samples
• facilitated whole class or peer feedback sessions
• encouraged student self-reflection
• administered formal assessment tasks.

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Comments & Reviews

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I’ve used this resource for the second year now with my Year 4 class. Very, very good. This is the hardest type of writing to teach I think but the class found the structure much easier with your lessons, Thank you so much.

Susan Hartnell · Sep 4th, 2018

Thank you so much for the positive feedback, Susan! I’m so glad that this unit of work helped you to teach narrative writing to your students.

Stephanie (Teach Starter) · Sep 7th, 2018

Thank you in advance for this fabulous resource. I look forward to introducing Narrative Writing to my students using this easy to follow unit plan. I am a BT and am about to embark on my first ever storytelling adventure with my learners. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Madeline Stoneham · Feb 18th, 2018

You are so welcome, Madeline! I’d love to hear how the unit goes… I hope it really helps you to draw the very best, most imaginative stories from your students!

Stephanie (Teach Starter) · Feb 18th, 2018

This looks amazing, thank you!

Trish Ratcliffe · Jan 17th, 2017

You’re most welcome, Trish! I hope your students enjoy the unit.
Kind regards,
Steph

Stephanie (Teach Starter) · Jan 20th, 2017

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