Exciting narrative endings

This lesson emphasizes the importance of a strong ending for a narrative essay and teaches students specific items to include in their endings.

A lesson plan for grades 3–4 English Language Arts

By Ann Jolly

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Related topics

• Learn more about conclusions, editing, language arts, read-alouds, revisions, story sense, writing, and writing process.

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Learning outcomes

• The student will state the importance of strong ending to a narrative.
• The student will write a strong ending to their narrative, including telling how the story ends, their feelings about how it ends, and why the events of the story are important to them.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

1 hour

Materials/resources

• Ghost’s Hour, Spook’s Hour by Eve Bunting
• large T-map on board
• red pencils
• student practice prompts

Pre-activities

Tells students, “I’m going to read you an example of an imaginative narrative. It is called Ghost Hour’s, Spook’s Hour.” Read the story to the climax (”‘Help!’, the blob yelled”). Stop reading, close the book, and silently walk to the board and write THE END. Once the students begin to complain and ask to hear the ending, tell them, “This is how I feel when I read your wonderful stories, and then they just suddenly stop! After I finish reading this book, you will write a strong ending to one of your stories.” Finish reading Ghost Hour’s, Spook’s Hour.

Activities

1. Discuss with students that the ending is a very important part of the story. Using a large T-map; identify the things that the ending should include.
   • tell how the story ends
   • tell how you feel about the ending
   • tell why the event in the story was important to you
2. Students will take out a recent practice prompt and underline the ending in red (signifying the end/stop). Talk with the students about how much of an ending their papers had. Did they include the 3 necessary things in the ending? Model an example of making a weak ending stronger; include 3 items.
3. Students independently revise their endings. The teacher will circulate, checking for understanding. Students share their products with their partner.

Assessment

Tell students, “Today you wrote a strong ending to your paper. Remember the ending is important- readers are interested and excited about your papers, you must bring closure to them. Your ending should include the 3 things discussed and outlined on the T-map at board. I will be looking at your papers now for strong endings.”

Teacher holds students accountable for strong endings. Uses work samples and practice prompts to see if students are writing strong endings.

Supplemental information

Comments

• Have students continue to collect strong endings from other stories. Post the strong endings collected on the wall
• Good lesson for teaching the Organization Feature