Writing a Narrative: Learning to Write About an Experience

Cindel M. Berlin

Introduction

Early Childhood Education has been the majority of my teaching career. I have always been drawn to the younger learners. The last three school years, I have taught first grade, special education students, along with general education students. Teaching writing in first grade can be challenging, but is often more challenging when students are identified as Special Education or English Language Learners. It is even more challenging when students are identified as Special Education and English Language Learners. My students are learning to become more comfortable with who they are. They are not shy kindergarteners they once were. However, writing is one academic area that my first graders lack confidence in. My first grade students are expected to come with the ability to write full and complete sentences. By the end of first grade, they are expected to write a full paragraph (5 sentences).

In first grade, students are expected to write a narrative about an experience they had. Usually, we have them write about their trip to the Philadelphia Zoo in First Grade. This seems like an easy writing experience, however most on grade level students struggle to form a complete sentence, let alone write an organized paragraph on an experience that they have had. My unit will focus on teaching students how to form a complete sentence, using basic grammar skills, while also building up their writing skills, and confidence.

Demographics

The students in my school come from very diverse backgrounds. There is approximately 750 or more kindergarten through fifth grade students in my school. Our school services student’s from low socioeconomic status and receive free breakfast and lunch. As a first-grade special education teacher, I have about 14 students on my caseload (spread throughout the first grade team, and my classroom) and about 12 general education students in the classroom I co-teach in. More than 60% of my class is ELL students. I often have students who speak one of these languages (sometimes two) English, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese. Learning to write in their native language can be challenging, let a lone learning a second language, while being expected to write competently in their second language. First graders are ages 6 and 7 years old (sometimes 8 if they are held back).

My students are often still learning basic math and phonics skills when they come into first grade. Many cannot write a sentence independently. They are familiar with the Smartboard, small and whole group activities, and hands on activities. They enjoy working together any chance that they can get. My goal for this unit is to have my students improve upon their knowledge and ability to write multiple complete sentences

in order to write a narrative about their trip to the Philadelphia Zoo. This lesson will help my students not only understand how to form a complete sentence, but an important life skill that is needed. Today’s students are exposed to writing every day through various media forms. This includes digital activities on the SmartBoard, short texts or stories in small or whole group, and across various areas of curriculum. My students are expected to write complete sentences in math, science, social studies, writing, and English language arts. They are often asked to writing in various specials that they attend.

Background Information

Building Writing Skills

My students work best with examples and practicing the skill taught to them repeatedly and across many different ways. They require many visuals, examples, repeated practice, and scaffolding to be able to meet the standards of writing a complete sentence. I want my students to learn the requirements and expectations of how to form a complete sentence, while staying on topic, and providing supporting details to the prompt they are given. I have learned that my students work best with a checklist to help guide them with writing, along with visual examples.

Composing a complete sentence

Writing takes a great amount of skills. These skills include letter/phonics recognition, decoding/encoding, organization, vocabulary and grammar. Students in first grade are still working on many of these skills, and often come in behind on them. My students will practice editing sentences, using sentence starters (phasing it back), using editing checklists, and other writing steps.

Narrative Writing

My students will learn how to write a narrative about their trip to the Philadelphia Zoo. My students will learn to tell their story in order using vocabulary, sight words, their phonics skills, and organization. They will learn that they can be confident writers, while telling their own story. My goal is to have my students learn to enjoy writing, while building confidence.

Our school and state follows the common core standards for reading, writing, and mathematics. The first grade narrative writing standard is CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.3 “Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.” The supporting standard is CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.8 “With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.” Connecting these two standards will be easy since they go hand in hand.

Key Content

Components of writing

There are many components to writing that students need to be taught in order to be successful in writing. These components include grammar, spelling, punctuation, word choice, and formatting and content knowledge.

Grammar has many rules to follow based off of the language that is used. These rules apply to speech and written language. These grammar rules teach us how to put words together to create sentences.

Spelling is the sounding out of words to be written down. The writer will need to understand their language and follow the phonic rules of how letters work. This includes how these letters sound independently and when they are paired together. In the early childhood grades (kindergarten, first, and second grade), students are encouraged to sound out their words independently without an adult giving the correct spelling. Students in these grades should be applying their phonic rules that they are learning that year to help them with their spelling.

Punctuation marks are certain marks such as a period, comma, question, exclamation and parenthesis, which are used in writing to separate sentences, ideas, and to clarify the ideas that the writer is trying to state.

Word choice is important when writing. It helps the writer to reach the reader. When using the correct choice of words, the reader will be able to visualize and feel what the writer is writing about.

Formatting is another important skill for students to learn. They need to know how to format their writing, depending on the type of writing they are doing, along with the purpose for their writing. First graders are expected to know how to write a letter, research pieces, opinion pieces, and narratives.

Content knowledge is often overlooked during the writing process. It is not done on purpose, but we often assume or forget that these children may not be exposed to topics or experiences when they are asked to respond to a prompt. We expect them to remember or already know what to do. With the population I work with, many students do not have the content knowledge that students in other areas of the state may have. Many of their parents are working multiple jobs and are not home, or their parents do not have the education to help them work on their schoolwork. This is due to different social-economic statuses their families have. Many of my students have never left the 5-mile radius around them, let alone go to the zoo, or have been in a preschool that builds their skills and content knowledge. These students are constantly catching up. These students often do not own books, or family members that will teach them how to write. This also applies to when you expect your students to know how to write a complete sentence. If there is no previous exposures or content knowledge, you will not receive what you are expecting to receive.

Parts of a Sentence

Students will need to know the 9 parts of a sentence. These nine parts of a sentence go hand in hand with the 9 parts of speech. In order to create a well written sentence, students will need to know what is a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, article, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection are important to the flow of a sentence. In first grade most will not master it, or be able to tell you what each one is, however some students can show the majority of the parts of the sentence in their writing by the end of first grade.

One of the easiest parts of speech to teach in my opinion is a noun. A noun describes a person, animals, events, place, or thing. This common noun (a noun) includes everyday or common nouns. For example, boy, airplane, restaurant, nap, etc., are some nouns. A pronoun is a substitute for a noun or noun phrase.i It takes the place of the name of the person place or thing.ii Some examples of a pronoun include I, me, we, she, him, they, you, their.

Verbs and adverbs are a little more challenging to teach, however students tend to use them without knowing they are using a verb or adverb. A verb refers to the words or group of words that describe an action, experience, or express a state of being.iii Some examples of a verb word are, run, sit, invite, go, have.iv An adverb is a word that describes a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or whole sentence.v These are some examples of an adverb: badly, fully, never, hardly, hungrily.vi

The next part of speech and writing is called an article. This tends to be used more frequently in the students writing. These words are taught in kindergarten and first grade. An article refers to the words that are used before a noun to modify the noun.vii For example: the, a, an.viii

The next parts of speech are adjectives and prepositions. Adjectives are words that describe a noun or pronoun. These words can describe emotions, how something looks, feels, or tastes. For example: old, new, tall, small, stinky, soft, blue, salty. Prepositions are words that are used before a noun or pronoun. Some examples of these words are, in, before, behind, on, since, near.

Finally the last two parts of speech are conjunctions and interjections. Conjunctions refer to the words that connect words, phrases, or clauses in a sentence.ix Some of these words are: and, or, so, after, since, before, either, neither, etc.x Interjections are words or phrases that are used to express a strong feeling or emotion.xi These words can be ahem!, aha!, gosh! aw!, great!, hey!, hi!, hooray!, etc.xii

Incorporating Technology into Writing

There are many ways as educators to incorporate technology into writing. By having technology incorporated into your lesson, you’re providing access and visual aids to your

diverse learners in your classroom. There is speech to text, which is great for students with developmental delays, and learning disabilities. Students speak into a microphone either on a tablet or computer. Then what they said becomes written for them. Another way to incorporate technology for special education students, english language learners, and any student who is low in writing is allowing them to sound out and type on a tablet or a computer. They will need help with it, but it allows them to write, even if they cannot hold a pencil. Computers are a great resource for students to type out their final draft on. This allows them to access and practice using technology.

If by chance you have an interactive white board, you can play many games with your students that involve teaching them how to write or the writing process. There are many writing activities, games, and videos on the internet to assist you while you teach a new skill. This will allow students to come up and interact with the board. The interactive white board is also great for writing and grammar activities. This allows you to edit sentences in front of the whole class, while practicing old skills and introducing new skills. As an educator you can create grammar lessons where students can interact with the smartboard or interactive white board. The same can be done when modeling how to create a sentence and write a paragraph. This technology can allow you to create a sentence starter to be displayed for your students that need it. It can also help you use a map or chart to show how writers organize their thoughts, ideas, and research before they start to write.

Writing Resources and Tools

When you are planning a writing activity it is imperative to have resources and tools that can reach all of your students, or very specific resources and tools for certain children. I have found that these resources and tools have really helped my students and I. Visuals are extremely important not only for early childhood students, but also with special education students and English language learners. I have downloaded ABC charts, blends & digraph charts, vowel pair charts, and a visual writing checklist. This way student’s have access to these visuals while writing. It also builds independence and confidence. It also helps students by using their skills repeatedly. Another visual aid I used and it really helps with my small groups, is a word wall with their first grade sight words, along with frequent words that are used and that cannot be sounded out phonetically.

Some writing materials that are handy for students learning to write, are larger spaced writing paper, larger spaced writing paper with part of the line highlighted, and paper with a sun at the top and a flower at the bottom of the line. This helps students visualize where to fit their words between and where upper case and lower case letters begin and end. Popsicle sticks and tongue compressors are great visual tool for when students need help putting spaces between their words. It helps them learn the concept of spacing between words while writing. Another couple of tools that are great are for students who are still struggling to hold their pencils are the thick pencils and the pencil grips. When students are not comfortable with holding their pencil, they will not be comfortable with writing.

Finally, small white boards are great for writing a sentence starter for students who need one. This allows them to copy it easier, while providing support and confidence to write. This is also great for students who struggle to copy from the white board or interactive white board.

Stages of Human Development and Writing

The various stages of human development affect how people write. It can be clearly seen throughout the school years. The acquisition of writing skills is a complex process and undergoes various stage.xiii Children usually try to attempt their first writing piece between the ages of five and seven.xiv During this stage, students start out by writing with personal experiences in knowledge telling process. Then between ages of seven and ten, students are increasingly better able to compose simple narratives, uncoupled from events that actually happened to them.xv The stage between 10 and 14 years is generally characterized by the slowly emerging ability to consider the anticipated reader.xvi This stage students are able to produce narratives, informative descriptions, and reports. Beyond 14 years of age, most students can finally write comments and argumentative texts.xvii

Importance of Writing

Writing is an extremely important skill that every student needs to have. Being able to write is one way for students and people to communicate every single day. Without strong writing skills, your students will not be able to communicate across their day via writing in an email or text message, giving or leaving instructions, communicating research, note taking, or other various tasks you need to use writing for. Writing also helps students build their language and literacy skills. For some of your students who have major speech or hearing impairments or delays, writing is one way or the only way for them to communicate.

Drawing to Aid in Writing

Young Children (5-7 years old) often draw pictures and write words to compose their stories.xviii The use of two symbol systems allows two ways for students to make meaning, so when one symbol system does not work, they turn to the other.xix In one study, the children who drew produced more sophisticated stories than those who did not. xx Students’ drawing supports students’ narrative writing for many reasons. The first reason is because very young children draw pictures that mediate their communication with parents and other adults.xxi The second reason is that students tend to inhabit their story worlds when they draw and write during planning and drafting.xxii The two symbol systems afford them two ways to immerse themselves in their early composing processes.xxiii This allows student to “think about the processes involved in finding ideas, composing and expressing meaning, rather than being hustled from one skills based task to another. xxiv The third reason was because children are exposed to narrative texts that rely upon metafictive devices (e.g., highly interactive characters and narrators) that require the reader to understand the interplay between pictures, words, narratives and

space. xxv Substantial research confirms that students write mature and complex narratives when they are taught what such visual and linguistic devices do and how they work together in picture books.xxvi

Front Loading Information

Frontloading information is when a teacher uses a pre-reading experience to expose and clarify important information in a text.xxvii This skill can be used to pre-teach content knowledge, and language structure of a text.xxviii Frontloading can make the book or writing piece more accessible to the reader, including English Learners (ELS) and Special Education Students.xxix With Special Education Students and English Learners, front loading information in various ways is extremely important for them to access the curriculum. Forty percent of my class is English Language Learners, and twenty- five percent of my class is identified as special education students. This technique is extremely important for my classroom and many other classrooms. This exposes them with information they may not have had previously or that they had previously, but did not understand. Using photographs, and other visuals like story maps, charts, or graphs are very beneficial for these students.

Strategies

This unit will have a multi-content and curriculum approach to it. It will be incorporated in writing and reading. To successfully integrate these strategies and content into lessons that will be meaningful to students in narrative writing, sentence structure, and vocabulary.

Common Core Writing Standards

Many states in the United States follow the Common Core Standards. Common Core Standards are required in Delaware for public schools. One of the Common Core Writing Standards that is being used is CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.3. This standard states that students will “Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.” Another standard that is being used is CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.5. This standard states that “With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed.” For my students who really struggle I would also use the Kindergarten standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.3. This standard has more flexibility. It states that students will “Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.” These standards will help guide you with helping your students write.

Common Core English Language Arts/Literacy Standards

In my unit the Common Core English Language Arts and Literacy Standards are used to help students with their writing. Standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.9 is “Identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures.) Another standard is CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.1 “Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.” The next standard is CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.14 “Ask and answer questions to help determine of clarify the meaning of words and phrases in a text.” These literacy standards will go along with the fiction and nonfiction text to help students expand their vocabulary, while being exposed to new vocabulary, all while building background knowledge about the zoo.

Instructional Strategies

Hands-on Activities

Students will participate in various hands on activities and skills. These activities will help them build their confidence as writers, while practicing these skills. They will practice making a complete sentence using the visual and hands on games to create sentences, practice writing a complete sentence with or without a sentence starter, using grammar in games and editing sentences. These activities are great for children between ages five and seven, since they are at the age where they will create their first writing piece, which is often a narrative about a personal experience that they have. This age group loves hands on activities. My students always want to touch and explore everything.

Special Education Students and English Language Learners

There are special resources and materials I use to help my Special Education Students and my hands on English Language Learners. Many of these resources are within their reach or their sight. I have a word wall of their first 100 fry words. I also have common words that are difficult for them to spell on that wall. I have laminated ABC charts with pictures associated with the sound that I hand out for them to use. This helps them sound out and spell their words. It also teaches them to use their resources in and out of the classroom. I also have an ABC’s, blends & digraph, and vowel pairs chart hanging up for them to see. I also have a period, question mark, and exclamation poster with clue words to help students know when to use each at the end of a sentence. Next I provide them with a pencil that is appropriate to their needs (Thicker for OT students or other reasons), a popsicle stick as a spacer for their words and an eraser. At the end of their writing, they receive a laminated checklist with visuals. They check their work with it. This helps them remember what their sentences need and by the end of the year they have the list memorized and apply everything before they check.

Classroom Activities

Practicing Writing a Complete Sentence

When the school year starts, you will have to review and continue to practice writing a complete sentence. Many of the hands on activities with help with this, however they still need to practice it outside of activities and games. Start the year off using a sentence starter for students to complete. Slowly fade back how many words are used in the sentence starter as the year goes. While doing these sentence starters review the parts of a sentence. Read back their sentences to them so they can hear how these sentences sound out loud. Help them use verbs, adverbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, propositions, conjunctions, interjections, and article.

Once students are done writing, have them check their sentences with a writing checklist. You will need to pre-teach how to use the checklist. This visual checklist is used to check for name, date, pictures, words, spacing and punctuation. This helps students learn and practice how to edit their sentences.

Grammar Practice

Once the school year starts, each week students are taught a new or previous learned grammar rule. This is an on going activity that, by springtime students have been exposed to the grammar rules they need to use to write their narrative about the zoo. Students will practice this new or old rule in whole and small group. This practice will look like identifying certain parts of speech in writing, writing pieces, and identifying in texts.

The identifying certain parts of speech in writing activity should only take 5-10 minutes a day. A sentence will be written on an interactive white board or used with another type of projector or white board. Teachers will model how to identify parts of speech in the sentence that was written. Color coding the parts of speech and labeling it will help students practice and be exposed to the vocabulary. This activity can be modified to each or certain students have it typed out before them. They can use highlighters or crayons. They should be using the same colors for the same parts of speech you are using. Eventually you can use this activity by having it printed out as an assessment, check point, or exit ticket. This is an easy way to check for understanding, while collecting data on how your class as a whole or individuals are doing.

Students will have this practice in their writing pieces. When reviewing their writing with them, point out which parts of speech they used, and where they can add it while editing it. Continue to use the vocabulary and examples while working on helping them edit their writing.

Another activity that can be done quickly can be accomplished during whole and small group reading. While reading point out the grammar rules that are in the story, then ask them if they can identify that grammar rule in the story. This way they are still being exposed to the vocabulary and being more aware of the grammar rules.

Editing Sentences

I have created a journal of editing sentences for each month. I refer back to it to write the sentences on the board for them to work on as a group or whole class. Every day, students will practice editing a sentence. It will start off with one or two mistakes that could be capitalization, punctuation, and spelling errors. As the year goes, and the students become better at recognizing what is wrong or missing, add more mistakes. This practice helps students remember and recognize how to edit their own sentences and writing pieces. This is also a great time to incorporate their sight words into the sentences for exposure and spelling practice.

Interactive and hands on games

The first hands on activity can be easily made or bought on a teachers resource website. I bought a sandwich sentence game. The beginning and ending parts of a sentence are the pieces of bread. Then there is a word with on a slice of cheese, another word on lettuce, on pickles, and on a tomato. Students will either read the words themselves or you will need to help them read the words. I give each student a sandwich (not in the correct order). They wait until I show them how to figure out the how to play the game while making their sandwich sentence. I start with the first piece of bread. I show and tell them that the first part of a sentence always starts with a capitol letter. The students find their piece of bread with the capitol letter and set it aside. I then read each student their first word if they cannot read it themselves. Then we look at the cheese, pickles, and meat. I read each word on each card for each student if they are unable to read it themselves. I then show them how I put my items of my sandwich together by moving my cards around to see if the sentence makes sense. I then add my punctuation (bread card) at the end. I then help my students put their first sentence together. The first time we play it, it is just to know the game and the structure. The second time they write the sentences in their journals. This is when you can help them edit and check their work. This activity can be used on an interactive white board. This way student’s can help each other and practice how to create a sentence.

The interactive white board is great for using to identify parts of a sentence, and how to use punctuation. The interactive white board allows you to color code parts of a sentence and move them around to create a better sentence.

Mentor Text

Frontloading information for your students is vital. This is especially important if your students come from a low socio-economic family. Students will be read a non-fiction and fiction text about a trip to the zoo before they go to the zoo. This will help students build content and background knowledge before they go. These texts will also demonstrate how a narrative is written. My choices for mentor text include Going to the Zoo by Tom Paxton (fiction), and Life at the Zoo by Michael George (non-fiction). Going to the Zoo, is a fiction story about children going to the zoo and their interactions while at the zoo. It is often very silly with the animals doing silly things. This gives the students an opportunity to rationalize what is real and what is not real in the story. This allows the teacher and the students to discuss how they know this story is fiction, and the purpose

this author wrote the story for. This is also a first grade skill students need to know for reading. Life at the Zoo, is a non-fiction story about what it’s like behind the scenes in the zoo, that the public may not always see. They are learning facts about the zoo and how the zoo works. This book is also great for teaching text and graphic features. These stories help students understand the concept of what a zoo is and what to expect and what not to when they attend the zoo field trip.

Field Trip

The first grade and the kindergarten team take the first graders and kindergarteners to the Philadelphia Zoo every spring. The first grade team then uses these experiences for the children to write their own personal narrative about their trip to the zoo. This experience gives our students the opportunity to see the zoo, while having the visual and tangible experience. For many of these students, it is there first time to the zoo, or leaving their neighborhood, let alone their state. This helps them to be able to visualize their writing better, by having current memories. With the vast amount of different animals, our students will have a unique piece to write about.

Once students come back from the field trip, they will draw and write about their experience loosely. This will allow them to easily refer back to while they are organizing, writing, and editing their narratives.

Writing

The writing process will have many steps to it based on each child’s writing ability and stage. Some factors that impact a child’s writing include background knowledge, being an English Language Learner, speech delay, having a learning disability or developmental delay, physical impairments that require occupational therapy, or anything else that may impact a student’s ability to write.

In first grade, many of the students at my school come from kindergarten and are still unable to write a complete sentence. This may be due to forgetting over the summer or not understanding how to write a complete sentence. However, by springtime your students should be able to write a complete sentence, with the exceptions of those students who are really behind.

Students will use the small piece they wrote or drew when they got back from the zoo. This piece or picture will help them organize and write their narrative. They will need an introductive sentence, two to three sentences in order (first, next, last, etc.) of what happened, and a closing sentence. Your students will then use a visual checklist to check for name, data, pictures, words, spacing and punctuation. Next, your students will then conference with you about their piece to make sure it is organized, and that they attempted to edit it on their own. Help them double check their editing, and sentence structure. When you feel they are confident and in a good place, have them write their final draft and picture (if they don’t want to use the current one). Once finished, you can have your students read or share their writing in front of their peers.

Some modifications that can be used to help your special education students and English language learners include having them draw a picture and label, provide sentence starters for each sentence for them to copy and complete. It may take these students a little longer to write.

Assessments

Formative

Some formative assessments will be given periodically throughout the school after the initial lessons are taught. Formative assessments can be exit tickets, worksheets, or observations during activities. Create them based off of student developmental levels and what you were able to teach.

Endnotes