Fictional Narrative Writing Mini Unit

Teach fictional narrative writing in eight lessons with a focus on the traits of writing – taking students through the whole writing process from generating ideas all the way to publishing final drafts. Fictional Narratives can be completed as part of a writer’s workshop, writing center, guided writing in small groups, or whole class activity.

Each day (lesson) takes students through one trait of writing:

•Lesson 1 – Ideas – Students brainstorm ideas for their narrative – problem/solution, characters, settings, etc.

•Lesson 2 – Organization – Students start planning their narrative – plot events for the beginning, middle, and end.

•Lesson 3 – Voice – Students plan their beginning, thinking about how they will hook the reader and connect to the audience.

•Lesson 4 – Writing the Rough Draft (this may be extended into two classes if the extra time is needed) – this is not a trait of writing, but necessary before the next traits can be examined. I have included optional printables for students to use for the writing of their rough drafts.

•Lesson 5 – Word Choice – Students revise their writing to include better examples of word choice – they must justify their choices in the reflection, and make actual changes on their rough draft.

•Lesson 6 – Sentence Fluency – Students continue to revise their writing for sentence fluency – including sentences that flow and a variety of shorter and longer sentences to add impact to their writing.

•Lesson 7 – Conventions – Students will use CUPS to go through and edit their rough drafts.

•Lesson 8 – Publishing – Students will publish their final drafts using the success criteria for editing on the page. I have included optional pages for this if students are hand-writing their final copies, but you can have them publish their work using any method that fits your class.

I also included a completed fictional narrative that you can use with students to get their creative juices flowing, or to provide a little extra guided help for students who require more scaffolding or differentiation. You may wish to include a lesson that has students evaluating this completed example with the rubric to help them fully grasp what is expected of them with the assessment.

A rubric is also included for assessment.

***********************************************************************************************************

Follow me on Instagram or Facebook to see more of my classroom ideas!