Writing Short Narratives with Sequencing

Design Guide

Designers for Learning - Adult Learning Zone

Part 1: Lesson Description

Lesson Title

Writing Narratives to Share with Preschool Students

Abstract

This lesson is part of a larger project that uses a real-world scenario (sharing stories with preschool students) to motivate and teach ESL learners in an adult education program to write narratives that depict a sequence of events using temporal words.  The lesson is intended to help the learners strengthen their writing skills with practice and gain a greater command of the English language for their immediate school and career goals.

Learner Audience / Primary Users

This lesson is intended for use with adult ESL learners who need a stronger written and oral command of the English language. It was designed for adult learners preparing to take the GED or high school equivalency exam and need more support to master the Career and College Readiness Standards for English Language arts.  It is expected that the learners would be on a reading level equivalent to at least 2nd or 3rd grade. Learners who are motivated by using creativity and enjoy writing will most likely experience the maximum amount of engagement for this lesson.   This lesson is best suited for a small group of students (perhaps 4-8) to one instructor to maximize teacher support. Students will work together and individually in a face-to-face setting to complete the learning tasks.

Educational Use

• Curriculum / Instruction
• Adult Basic Education

Language

English

Material Type

• Instructional Material
• Lesson Plans

Keywords

• Designers for Learning
• Adult Education
• English Language Arts and Literacy
• Writing
• College and Career Readiness

Time Required for Lesson

75 minutes

Targeted Skills

Key skills covered in this lesson include:

• Ability to write clearly for a particular purpose and audience.
• Identification of sequence of events in an existing story.
• Write a brief narrative that depicts sequence of events.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson, the learner should be able to:

• Given an existing story, the learner will be able to identify at least the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

• Using a graphic organizer, the learner will be able to write a brief narrative of at least 3 paragraphs.
• The learner will accurately use temporal words to to signal a sequence of at least 3 events.

College & Career Readiness Standards (CCRS) Alignment

• Level: Adult Education
• Grade Level: CCRS Grade Level B
• Subject: English Language Arts / Literacy
• Domain or Strand: Writing
• Standard Description:

• Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.
• CCR Anchor 4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task and purpose.
• CCR Anchor 5: With guidance and support from peers and others, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing.
• With guidance and support, use technology to produce and publish writing (using keyboarding skills) as well as to interact and collaborate with others.

Prior Knowledge

Learners should be at a 2nd grade reading and writing level or above.  Learners should be able to identify the beginning, middle, and end of a story.  Learners should have some understanding of the concept of temporal words. Learners should be able to recall a story from their childhood.

Required Resources

• Internet access
• Computer hooked to LCD projector with audio
• Screen
• Story Sequence Planner graphic organizer (printed worksheet and digital version)
•  Peer Evaluation Rubric for evaluating narratives (printed copies for each student)
• Sample graphic organizer (optional)

Lesson Author & License

• Lesson Author: Danielle Cadieux Boulden

• License: Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license

Part 2: Lesson

Instructional Strategies and Activities

Warm-Up

Time: 10 minutes

The instructor will ask students to share some of their favorite stories from their childhood.  They will provide a brief synopsis of the story with the class.

Introduction

Time: 5 minutes

The instructor will explain that she is working with an instructor at a local Head Start preschool program who is teaching her students about elements of a story (e.g. beginning, middle, and end).  The instructor at the preschool wanted some original stories to share with the students, therefore, the students will be writing short narrative stories to share with the preschool students.  Eventually the students will be creating a video story using Voicethread, however, first they must write the stories and that is what they are doing today.

Presentation / Modeling / Demonstration

Time: 15  minutes

The instructor will define the term temporal words and explain that they are used to demonstrate sequence of events in stories.  The instructor will show a story from Storyline Online at http://www.storylineonline.net.  The students will watch the story and fill out the Story Planner graphic organizer as a class after they watch the story.  The instructor will project the graphic organizer on the screen as they complete it.

Guided Practice

Time: 20 minutes

Using the graphic organizer the students will write their own narrative story filling in temporal words from the list on the back of the graphic organizer or using their own.  See the example graphic organizer for The Gingerbread Man in the Required Resources section.

Evaluation

Time: 15 minutes

Using the assessment rubric provided, the learners will partner up with a classmate and assess their narrative as well as make suggestions and provide feedback where needed.

Application

Time: 10 minutes

The instructor will show the students a story created with Voicethread and explain that once the students go through the editing and revision stages they will be publishing and sharing their stories with the preschool students.

Key Terms and Concepts

Graphic Organizer- A visual display to help structure writing.

Narrative- A written account of connected events that make a story.

Preschool- School for students who are not yet in grade school, typically between 3 and 4 years old.

Rubric- A scoring tool that represents the performance expectations for an assignment.

Sequence of Events- Events that occur in logical order (e.g. beginning, middle, end)

Temporal words- Words that describe the position of an event in time.

Voicethread- A web 2.0 application that combines audio and images.

Part 3: Supplementary Resources & References

Supplementary Resources

http://www.storylineonline.net

References

Storyline online. (n.d.)  Retrieved from http://www.storylineonline.net

Attribution Statements

This course content is offered by Designers for Learning under a CC Attribution license.
Content in this course can be considered under this license unless otherwise noted.        Page

(Design Guide effective September 12, 2016)