April
21
Writing Assignment – Personal Narratives: Narrowing a Topic
Materials:
- Personal Narrative Writing Packet (the same packet is used for all Personal Narrative lessons), blank paper, or writing/drawing app
- Story – Birthday
- Packet Examples
Note: if you don’t want to print off the packet, you can find a PDF marking tool or simply redraw the page however you want, like a poster. Otherwise, complete this activity on the second half of page on Coming up with good story ideas.
Today we are going to learn to narrow our story ideas to a small moment or a seed.
- Read the two stories in Birthday and think about the following questions.
- Which story has more detail?
- Which story is easier to see in your mind?
- Look at some examples in the “Narrowing a Topic to a Seed Story” section of the Packet Examples.
- Complete the Narrowing a Topic chart in your Personal Narrative Writing Packet by narrowing the topic for each story idea that you generated in Generating Ideas lessons.
- Write the big idea of your story under the watermelon.
- Write a slice of that idea under the watermelon slice.
- Write a seed of the idea under the watermelon seed.
- Share with someone in your family how you narrowed down your favourite story idea.