LEARN NC

K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

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  • You can't tell it all!: Narrowing the focus of personal narratives: Students will learn to focus their personal narratives on just one main event by listing events on a topic and identifying one main event to write about. Focusing their personal narratives on one main event helps students to write about only the important things and leave out events and details that are not related to the main event.
  • "So what?" details: Students will learn that adding details to a piece of writing doesn't make it better if the details are "So What?" details. Details and elaboration should be related to the main idea and should move the story along in an interesting manner.
  • Lesson plans for teaching focus: A collection of LEARN NC's lesson plans for teaching focus, the first of the five features of effective writing.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

  • identify the one main topic of a story
  • learn how to strengthen their narratives by focusing on one main topic
  • write a short narrative centered around one main topic

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

1 hour

Materials/resources

  • Blank transparency
  • Overhead markers
  • Transparency: “What’s the Main Event” pdf | rtf
  • Handout: “A Special Day at the State Fair” pdf | rtf

Technology resources

Overhead Projector

Activities

Modeling/Mini-lesson

Display the top portion of the transparency. For each numbered choice, let students select which choice would be the best one for a story with one main event. Students may indicate their choices with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down signal as the teacher reads each choice. Correct responses include:

  1. The Scary Roller Coaster Ride
  2. Getting Lost at the Fair
  3. Winning the Sack Race
  4. A Surprise Bike for Christmas.

Discuss the reasons for the selections.

Guided Practice

  • Display the bottom section of the transparency and read each topic. Ask the students, either independently or with a partner, to create a better topic for a story, one that will focus on one main event. For example, instead of “A Trip to the Beach,” the topic could be “The Worst Sunburn Ever” or “Building the Ultimate Sand Castle.” Share out some of the responses.
  • Distribute the handout “A Special Day at the State Fair.” Read the story aloud to the students, and then work with the students to identify several ideas or events that are included in this story. (Ideas might include the trip to the fair, standing in line at the state fair, the roller coaster ride, the log ride, riding the vortex, or bored at the exhibits.)

Independent Practice

  • Have students select one of these main events. On their handout, they may cross out all the other events and details. Then, at the bottom of the handout, lead them to create a well-elaborated main event, adding thoughts, actions, and feelings as appropriate.
  • When most students are finished, ask student pairs who chose the same main event to compare their stories. Share responses.

Closure

Remind students that choosing one main event as the focus of the story will most likely result in a well-elaborated, interesting story.

Assessment

Can the class:

  • correctly distinguish the narrower topics from the broader topics on the “What’s the Main Event” transparency.
  • identify main events in the narrative “A Special Day at the State Fair.”

Can pairs of students:

  • generate a single main event from a broader topic provided on the “What’s the Main Event” transparency.

Can individual students:

  • identify a single main event in a previously written personal narrative from their writing folder and expand that main event into a focused personal narrative.

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

English Language Arts (2004)

Grade 2

  • Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
    • Objective 4.06: Plan and make judgments about what to include in written products (e.g., narratives of personal experiences, creative stories, skits based on familiar stories and/or experiences).

Grade 3

  • Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
    • Objective 4.06: Compose a draft that conveys major ideas and maintains focus on the topic by using preliminary plans.