Narrative Writing Teaching Resources
Teach narrative writing this school year with writing prompts, printable worksheets, storyboards and story maps and more teaching resources created by teachers for elementary teachers like you.
This collection of TEKS and Common Core curriculum-aligned teaching resources has been carefully curated by our expert teacher team. That means not only is every resource teacher-created, but each one has undergone our review process to ensure it's ready for your lesson plan and your students!
Is this your first year teaching students about writing narratives? Or maybe you're just looking for some fresh ideas to tackle the topic? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!
What Is Narrative Writing?
Narrative writing is the act of writing a story, and those stories can be fictional or non-fiction accounts of something the student has experienced or learned about.
This type of writing is often popular with students as it allows them to use their imagination and creativity.
Which Elements Does Strong Narrative Writing Always Contain?
To make their narrative writing engaging and strong, there are certain key elements students need to understand and include, so we've compiled this quick refresher for you.
Plot
The plot of strong narrative writing is crucial — without it, there's no narrative! Keeping the reader interested from the start of a story involves developing the characters well and including conflict.
Structure
Structure of the text is just as important as the plot when writing a strong narrative. Students should be writing texts that include a beginning, middle and end. This can include a clear introduction that sets up the main conflict, a rising action that builds tension and excitement and a resolution that provides closure and ties up loose ends.
Descriptive Language
Teaching students to go beyond overused words like "said" or "nice" and using more descriptive language can help them make their narrative writing stronger. This graphic element of writing works with imagery and figurative language to help readers visualize the story.
Descriptive language helps the reader to visualize the setting and the characters. Sensory details can help kids set the scene in their essay or story.
Point of View
Whether it is written in the first-person, the third-person or flips back and forth, a piece of strong narrative writing has a clear point of view. This helps the reader better understand the narrator or protagonist.
What Is a Hook in Narrative Writing?
One feature of narrative writing you may want to focus on with your students this school year is the art of writing a "hook" to capture the reader's attention and draw them into the story. This is a compelling introduction that will engage the reader and make them want to keep reading!
There is no one kind of hook! It can be anything from an interesting fact or question to a dramatic opening scene or dialogue.
8 Narrative Writing Examples and Assignments to Get Students Writing
Are you looking for some different examples of narrative writing assignments that will engage your students and inspire them to write? Try these ideas from our teacher team!
- A personal narrative about a special day the student will never forget
- A fictional narrative about a group of friends going on an adventure
- A descriptive narrative that uses sensory details and describing words to create a vivid image of riding a rollercoaster
- A historical narrative that tells the story of their favorite president
- A reflective narrative that explores the writer's thoughts and feelings about going to high school one day
- A fantastical narrative that includes magical or imaginary elements, like the arrival of a magic hat in the classroom
- A humorous narrative that uses comedic elements to entertain the reader about a time their gym teacher was replaced by an alien
- A collaborative narrative that involves students writing a chapter book in small groups
- Plus Plan
Story Leads To Hook Your Readers
How to hook your reader: 11 techniques to open your story with a bang and grab your reader's attention!
- Plus Plan
Writing a Friendly, Personal Letter Poster
An educational poster showing students how to lay out a personal letter.
- Plus Plan
January Writing Prompts - Lower Elementary
20 writing prompts for January with corresponding writing sheets.
- Plus Plan
Topic Sentence Starter Cards
A pack of 32 narrative, persuasive, and report (informative) writing sentence starter cards.
- Plus Plan
Personal Recounts Worksheet - My Wonderful Weekend
A simple text and worksheet to use when exploring personal recounts.
- Plus Plan
Personal Recount Planning Template
A template for students to use when planning a personal recount.
- Plus Plan
Simple Recounts - Writing Scaffold
A simple scaffolding worksheet to use when writing a recount.
- Plus Plan
Introduction to Personal Recounts PowerPoint
An 18 slide editable PowerPoint template to use when teaching younger students about the structure and language features of personal recounts.
- Plus Plan
My Broken Ankle - Narrative Text Structure Worksheet
A worksheet for teaching students how to write using a basic narrative text structure.
- Plus Plan
Surprise! - Narrative Text Structure Worksheet
A worksheet for teaching students how to write using a narrative text structure.
- Plus Plan
Police Car Ride - Narrative Text Structure Worksheet
A worksheet for teaching students how to write using a basic narrative text structure.
- Plus Plan
Assessment Rubric - Poetry
An assessment rubric designed to help teachers to assess student's poetry.
- Plus Plan
Analyzing Poetry PowerPoint
A 19 slide editable PowerPoint template the use when teaching students how to analyze poetry.
- Plus Plan
Assorted Writing Prompts Calendar - Lower Elementary
Monthly writing calendar with 240 writing prompts for the year.
- Plus Plan
Narrative Sentence Starter Cards
Thirty sentence starter cards for narratives.
- Plus Plan
Pirate Posters - Captain Calloway and Pirate Pearl B&W
A set of two black and white posters with amazing illustrations of fictitious pirate characters.
- Plus Plan
Pirate Posters - Captain Calloway and Pirate Pearl
A set of two posters with amazing illustrations of fictitious pirate characters.
- Plus Plan
Pirate Ship - Writing Template
A printable pirate themed writing template to use in the classroom.
- Plus Plan
Pirate-Themed Mini Storybook Template
Students use this template to create their own pirate-themed mini storybook.
- Plus Plan
Comic Strip Templates
A set of templates for students to write their own comics.
- Plus Plan
Independence Day Acrostic Poem - Template
An acrostic poem template to use in the classroom for Independence Day.
- Plus Plan
Sporting Picture Stories - Sequencing Activity
A set of sequencing cards for students to use as an independent writing activity.
- Plus Plan
Using Linking Devices in Narrative Paragraphs Worksheets
3 worksheets teaching students how to link ideas when writing narrative paragraphs.
- Plus Plan
Narrative Text Type Poster With Annotations
A poster about the narrative text type, including an annotated example.
- Plus Plan
Paragraphs in Narrative Writing Poster
A poster explaining how to write paragraphs in narrative texts.
- Plus Plan
Narrative Paragraphs Sequencing Activity
6 jumbled narrative paragraphs for students to sequence in the correct order.
- Plus Plan
Narrative Structure Sorting Task
A sorting task to help students learn about narrative structure.
- Plus Plan
Writing a Narrative - Template
A template to use when planning a narrative text.
- Plus Plan
What's At Stake Poster
A poster to display in your classroom when teaching students how to build characters for a story.
- Plus Plan
December Writing Prompts - Lower Elementary
20 writing prompts for December with corresponding writing sheets.
- Plus Plan
Narrative Writing Visual Prompts
A 19-slide PowerPoint containing a set of 5 visual narrative writing prompts.
- Plus Plan
November Writing Prompts - Lower Elementary
20 writing prompts for November with corresponding writing sheets.
- Narrative Writing Templates
- Narrative Writing Posters
- Narrative Writing Worksheets
- Narrative Writing Games
- Narrative Writing for Kindergarten
- Narrative Writing for 1st Grade
- Narrative Writing for 2nd Grade
- Narrative Writing for 3rd Grade
- Narrative Writing for 4th Grade
- Narrative Writing for 5th Grade
- Narrative Writing for 6th Grade
- Narrative Writing for 7th Grade