Finishing Our Response to Literature Pieces

In our writers workshop time, we are finishing up our Response to Literature stories and getting ready to go back and revisit the genre of writing called “Narrative Writing”. We have already taught the students the basic parts of a Narrative at the beginning of the year (such as an engaging beginning, and middle with details, and problem, solution, and an ending with a sense of closure). However, we are now going to dig deeper, and teach them some “author's craft” to make their narrative stories even better.

Examples of some “Author's Craft” are things like:

· Using dialogue (we call these ‘talking marks’ or ‘quotation marks’)

· Using transition/time cue words that move their story though time

· Giving concrete details

· Replacing weaker verbs (such as ‘said’) with stronger verbs (such as ‘shouted’ or ‘exclaimed’)

· Characterization (helping their characters ‘come to life’)


Here is the narrative checklist your child will be using. The narrative stories they write, must contain all of the following elements to meet the first grade standard.

Elements in my Narrative Story:

(does my story have…)

_____ Engaging beginning

_____ A middle that includes:

1. details

2. sequenced events

3. authors craft

_____ Problem

_____ Solution

_____ An ending with a sense of closure