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Writing a Personal Narrative |
Credits:
Jeffrey Peck
Mountain View Elementary, Broomfield, CO
VITAL INFORMATION
Subject Matter:
Elementary, Language Arts (English)
Grades:
4
Software Application:
StarOffice Writer, AppleWorks, Microsoft Word
LESSON DESCRIPTION
Summary:
Personal narrative is often used in writing assessments. Students need to be familiar with this genre. They can use the computer to facilitate transfer of work between prewriting, rough draft, and final draft. Less rewriting is needed than if they did this with paper and pencil. They will use copy/paste and "save as" in this activity.
Students will be given a prompt and write the entire piece in the lab. Prewriting will begin on the 2 column note template (see attachments). Next they use copy and paste to transfer their notes to a rough draft. Finally, they use "save as" and make changes for a final draft.
State & National Standards:
CO- Colorado Academic Standards
« Subject : Reading and Writing
« Standard 2: Students write and speak for a variety of purposes and audiences
Writing and speaking are essential tools for learning, for success in the workplace, and for responsible citizenship. Developing a range of writing and speaking abilities requires extensive study, practice, and thinking. Students need frequent opportunities to write and speak for different audiences and purposes, and they need to be able to communicate expressively, informatively, and analytically. Growth in writing and speaking abilities occurs by applying skills to increasingly challenging communication tasks
« Grade/Level : CO- Colorado Academic Standards
« Grade/Level : Grades K-4
Performance Indicator : organizing their speaking and writing
Performance Indicator : revising and editing speech and writing
« Standard 3: Students write and speak using conventional grammar, usage, sentence structure, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling
Students need to know and be able to use standard English. Proficiency in this standard plays an important role in how the writer or speaker is understood and perceived. All skills in this standard are reinforced and practiced at all grade levels and should be monitored by both the teacher and student to develop lifelong learning skills
« Grade/Level : CO- Colorado Academic Standards
« Grade/Level : Grades K-4
Performance Indicator : knowing and using correct capitalization, punctuation, and abbreviations
Local Standards:
INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY SKILLS CONTINUUM
#2:Using productivity software as a basis for learning and skill building. Students demonstrate and understand the universal tools of word processing.
- Begins using touch typing with home keys.
- Independently uses spell check and thesaurus.
- Changes character formatting such as font color.
- Utilizes different document layouts. (i.e. newsletter, etc.)
- Changes document formatting such as: alignment, bulleted/numbered lists, borders, line spacing, margins, etc.
- Inserts a graphic into a word-processed document.
- Uses drawing tools such as: selection tools, eyedropper, etc.
Lesson Outcomes:
Students need to be proficient with the personal narrative genre, which we use for writing samples taken at the beginning, middle and end of each school year. We will work on the characteristics of this genre as we complete this assignment. Students will then use the computer for the entire writing process - prewrite, rough draft, revision, editing, and the final draft.
Assessment:
Students' work will be evaluated using the Adams 12 District Fourth Grade Personal Narrative rubric (see attached rubric.) They will be evaluated for content, organization, style and editing.
Students could be given the rubric ahead of time to see how they will be evaluated.
Assessment/Rubrics:
Attachments:
1. 4th Grade Personal Narative Rubric
CLASSROOM & TIME MANAGEMENT
Student Prerequisites:
Students should be familiar with the word processing program used for this lesson.
Lesson Preparation:
Teacher should load the two-column pre-writing template into each student's directory on the server.
Attachments:
1. Two-Column Notes Template -Download StarOffice File -- Download MS Office File
Time Frame:
3 class periods. 45 Min. per class.
Implementation Steps:
Day 1 : Students are given the assignment to write about a happy, sad, or scary moment in their life. Students use a 2 - column note template (see attachment.) They write the event on the left side and details/feelings for the event on the right side. They are told to have about 4 events and two feelings/details for each event. We discuss the need to focus on a small period of time. They should "write a lot about a little" rather than a "little about a lot". Focus on the moment! We also talk about showing, rather than telling. Don't say, "I was scared". Describe what scared looks like. These should be complete sentences.
Day 2: Students open a new text page. They also open their prewriting template. They put a title and topic sentence on the new page (rough draft). We talk about an exciting introduction that grabs the reader's attention. Next, they copy their first detail from the prewriting and paste it onto the rough draft. After that, they copy the feeling/ detail sentence(s) that support the event. They repeat these steps until all of the prewriting is copied to the rough draft. They finish with a good concluding sentence. They should spell check, proofread, and save this as My Story - rough. They should print out the rough draft.
Day 3: Students need to look over the rough draft to revise for word choice (strong verbs, descriptive language) and sentence fluency (variety of sentence starters and lengths). They can make marks on the rough draft with pencil. They can also check for obvious grammar errors and other errors. I conference with them about their papers during this time as well. They need to open up their rough draft and immediately go to Save As. They can call this My Story - final. This way, the changes that they make won't permanently alter the original. They should view their marked up rough draft as they make the final. They need to spell check, proofread and save this final copy. Finally, they can print.
RESOURCES
Lesson Resources:
Students will work independently in the computer lab, one student per computer. Conferencing with teacher can take place during lab time or in the classroom.
STUDENT PRODUCT(S)
Product(s) Description:
Attachments:
REFLECTION
Comments:
The students have a hard time zeroing in on a small time period for this activity. They want to tell "a little about a lot" instead of the other way around. The teacher can provide some examples of his/her own to help illustrate this point.
Personal Narritive
Have you ever been on a ride that makes you cry so hard?
I was getting into the hard seat of the Thunder Bolt. I thought it wasn't
going to be as scary as I imagined. The ride started to start. I wasn't scared.
Then all of the sudden it started going faster and faster. I was screaming
to my brother,I don't like this. Finally it started to go backwards. I almost
started to cry. I could feel my head pounding against the seat. It gave me
a headache. Then it stopped. I ran to my mom and bursted into tears.It was
so scary,I was happy that it was over. That was one of the most scariest rides
to me!
Student
11/5/01
New Personal Narrative
The Thunder Bolt
Have you ever been on a ride that makes you cry so hard? I was getting into
the hard seat of the Thunder Bolt. I thought it wasn't going to be as scary
as I imagined. The ride started to go. I wasn't scared. Then all of the sudden
it started going faster and faster. I was screaming to my brother, I don't
like this. Finally it started to go backwards. I almost started to cry. I
could feel my head pounding against the seat. It gave me a headache. Then
it stopped. I ran to my mom and burst into tears. It was so scary, I was happy
that it was over. That was one of the scariest rides to me!
-
Developed under a grant from Sun Microsystems, Inc. Open Gateways at Mountain View
Elementary School by Steve Gandy, Technology Coordinator - mountain.adams12.org/TISS
© 2003