SpringBoard’s English Language Arts offers a full curriculum with a flexible framework so you can use its units and resources as needed.
Grade 4 Writing Personal Narrative PN - 1 DRAFT - August 2009 PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS Narrative Writing: Personal Narrative Unit Introduction Unit Overview: This unit is designed to follow on the heels of the launching unit. This is a ELA Common Core kit for writing narrative pieces for 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. It comes with Common Core Connections! This kit covers narrative writing for all three grades and has all the common core connections inside the kit.
Why It Helps
Beginning in grade 6, SpringBoard English Language Arts students develop and refine skills in critical thinking, close reading, writing in various genres, and doing research.
Over the course of the program, they read and analyze a wide range of texts in genres including poetry, novels, plays, biographies, nonfiction narratives, speeches, and films. They also learn to write in forms including essays, personal narratives, argumentative texts such as editorials, and research papers.
How It Works
Each grade level uses complex, grade appropriate texts that allow students to examine an idea from multiple points of view while working with a variety of genres. Students progress from guided reading through collaborative projects to confident, independent work.
Grade 6
In units built around the theme “Change,” students will:
- Read work by Langston Hughes, John Steinbeck, and Sandra Cisneros
- Write narrative, explanatory, and argumentative texts
- Learn strategies for planning, drafting, revising, and editing their own writing
- Explore the fundamentals of research, including citations and how to evaluate the credibility of sources
- Deepen their understanding of topics through film and multimedia
Grade 7
In units built around the theme “Choice,” students will:
- Read work by Nelson Mandela, Robert Frost, Sojourner Truth, and Shakespeare
- Learn close reading strategies to discover the explicit and implicit content of texts
- Write in argumentative, explanatory, and narrative modes
- Examine how ideas are conveyed in film and multimedia
Grade 8
In units built around the theme “Challenges,” students will:
- Read work by Ray Bradbury and Walt Whitman, an essay about Civil War heroes, narratives about the Holocaust, and Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech
- Learn about the hero archetype and hero’s journey narratives
- Write narrative, explanatory, argumentative, and other texts
- Research an issue in current events and then create a multimedia presentation
- Read scenes from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, then watch the scenes on film and analyze how the adaptation differs from the source
Grade 9
In units that examine the uses of language, students will:
- Read works by authors such as Margaret Atwood, Louise Erdrich, William Shakespeare, Joshua Bennett, Toni Morrison, as well as selected nonfiction
- Learn to gather evidence from texts and incorporate it into written and oral responses
- Write in argumentative, informational, narrative, and other modes
- Research and present findings around a current issue
Grade 10
In units that study the power of language to persuade, students will:
- Read works such as Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Sophocles’ Antigone, Susan B. Anthony’s “On Women’s Right to Vote,” and Kofi Annan’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech
- Examine how culture influences worldview
- Incorporate textual evidence into a written argument
- Write in argumentative, narrative, information, and other modes
- Research a culture and present findings in a collaborative presentation using digital media
Grade 11
In units built around the theme “The American Dream,” students will:
- Read foundational documents such as the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, essays by Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Write an expository essay defining what it means to be an American
- Write a synthesis essay arguing whether or not America still provides access to the American Dream
- Write in a variety of modes and genres
- Compare print and film versions of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible
- Create a news outlet based on real-world news organizations
Grade 12
In units built around the theme “Perspective,” students will:
- Read works such as James Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village,” George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” Shakespeare’s Othello, and George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion
- Apply multiple perspectives to complex texts
- Apply various types of literary criticism: archetypal, Marxist, feminist, historical, cultural, and reader response
- Perform rigorous reading and writing that synthesizes learning
- Analyze how historical contexts have influenced performances of Othello, and compare multiple film versions of the drama
Standard: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details and well-structured event sequences.
About This Chapter
Eighth-grade students who have mastered this standard know how to establish a narrative context and point of view to engage and maintain the reader's interest. Mastery also includes the ability to introduce the narrator and characters and develop a natural, well-reasoned sequence of events that culminate in a logical conclusion.
The concepts covered in this lesson include:
- An overview of the narrative essay, including its definition, organization and examples
- The use of narrative techniques, including description, dialogue, pacing and reflection
- The use of transitions to indicate sequence, signal shifts and relate experiences
- How descriptive details and sensory language can be used to convey action
- How to write conclusions that reinforce the narrated experiences and events.
Students demonstrate their understanding of narrative techniques by using descriptive and reflective writing, dialogue and pacing to develop characters and events. During the writing process, they are able to use transitional clauses, phrases and words to convey sequence and signal shifts between time frames or settings. Actions and events are portrayed through descriptive details, precise wording and sensory language. Essays conclude in a manner that flows from and reflects back on the narrative experience.
How to Use These Essays in Your Classroom
Narrative Essay Lesson
Watch the narrative essay lesson at the beginning of class. Provide students with a short, first-person narrative to read in class, and then identify and discuss the different elements of the essay, including character(s), setting, plot and climax. For homework, ask students to write two narrative essays about the same event, but from two different points of view, e.g., child and parent, student and teacher, two friends or a pet and its owner.
Descriptive Details and Sensory Language Lesson
8th Grade Ela Worksheets Printable
As a homework assignment, students will watch the descriptive details lesson and write a paragraph about what they had for dinner using descriptive details and sensory language. Written work will be read and aloud and discussed in class.
Narrative Conclusion Lesson
8th Grade State Exam Ela
View and discuss the narrative conclusion lesson in class. For homework, students will write a conclusion to a short narrative essay and share their work in class.