Personal Narrative Writing

We completed our personal narratives this week in writing.  The students should be very proud of the hard work they put into each step of this writing process.  We began by learning that a personal narrative focuses on a small moment.  We compared it to thinking of a big topic as a whole watermelon and a personal narrative topic as a watermelon seed.  We brainstormed many topic ideas that would be big whole watermelon topics and other topics that would be watermelon seeds.

The next step was to complete a graphic organizer to help us brainstorm all of the details that would go with our small moment.  I asked the students to recall details that related to their 5 senses.  During their small moment, what did they see, hear, smell, taste (if applicable), feel?

The students then took their ideas and wrote them out in complete sentences.  They cut apart their sentences and put them in an order that made the most sense.  We also found that some details needed to be left out if they didn't make sense.  Then the sentences were glued down onto large pieces of construction paper.  The students learned about transition words like first, then, next, finally.  On a colored note card, the students wrote a few transition words to add to their story and cut and glued those in the spots that made sense.  We also added some sound or feeling words to give our writing even more voice.  Those were also written a colored note card and cut and glued on.

After all of these steps were completed, the class was certain that they had their finished writing project.  Then we talked about putting it into a format that can be easily read and understood by their readers.  The final step was to recopy their work onto writing paper, including an illustration, and putting it into a book with a dedication page.  They turned out great, and the students are enjoying reading each other's books on the rug.

On Friday a few students shared their completed writing, and others will share on Monday.

Nice work 2nd graders!