This resource presents instructional writing practices to help English language arts teachers teach the thinking skills, processes, and knowledge needed to write an effective personal narrative essay.
This resource uses original content from the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies: Focus on Writing (TALA Writing) professional development. Any handout numbers in this resource refer to the original TALA Writing handouts.
Download and print the handout packet for this resource by clicking the button below.
Personal narratives are a type of literary writing based on real-life (true), personal experiences that have significant meaning for the writer.
When you are ready, click play on the video below.
Mentor texts are teacher-selected texts that “show” rather than “tell” how authors write. Teachers explicitly teach students how to think and learn from these texts by reading them aloud and stopping periodically to verbalize their thoughts about the author’s style or craft. Then, teachers give students opportunities to apply the same ideas and features to their own writing.
Please locate Handout 34: Personal Narrative Elements and Handout 35: Personal Narrative Elements Mini-Chart from the handout packet.
These handouts present the 10 key elements of personal narratives. Handout 34 is designed as a teacher's guide and should not be distributed to your students. The mini-chart on Handout 35 can be placed in students' writer's journals or notebooks or displayed in your classroom.
Take a few minutes to review the 10 elements.
When teaching students how to write personal narratives, it is important to introduce each of the elements, usually one at a time, using explicit teacher modeling and identifying the elements in mentor texts.
When you are ready, click play on the video below.