Narrowing the focus: What's the main event?

In this lesson, students will learn how to narrow the focus of their personal narrative down to one main event by selecting a more specific title. Good stories are focused on one topic or main event. The reader should be able to tell the most important thing that the story is about. Instead of writing a story about a whole vacation that describes many events, it is a good strategy to write a story about one thing that happened on the vacation-one main event.

A lesson plan for grades 2–3 English Language Arts

By DPI Writing Strategies

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Related pages

• 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.

Related topics

• Learn more about focus, language arts, main idea, and 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.