Every Story Matters
Our students may feel as though they have nothing important enough to write about. It is important that we model for them that writing about things that happen in our daily lives is some of the most important writing that we can do! Being a writer doesn't mean only writing about huge events, as a teacher I want to hear about my students' daily lives and stories that make them who they are. Please check out the resource that I have linked for more inspiration!
Small Moment Narrative (First Draft)
I cheered for most of my life and it was always something that I enjoyed doing. In highschool I was on varsity and we had three different uniforms. A black, white, and maroon and gold one which were our school colors. Our coach usually let us pick which one we wore. Each night before games we would text in a group message and it usually went something like, "Okay, so what uniform?"
'White?"
"No black, the boys are wearing their black uniforms"
Coach: "Black tomorrow, maroon Friday."
I liked to pack my bag the night before because I liked to be prepared for the next day. One night I had tons of homework, so I decided to just pack my bag the next morning. What was I thinking?
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The next night I arrived to cheer and walked through the gym that was filled with fans as the J.V. games were finishing up. As soon as I walked into the room where my teammates were warming up, I felt a sense of dread. I looked down at my uniform and my face started to feel warm. Everyone was wearing their black uniforms, except me. There I stood, wearing my white uniform. So much for a black sheep, I was the white sheep! The game was starting in 30 minutes and I had no clue what to do. I called my Mom (over and over) with no answer. My coach said it was no big deal, but it sure felt like one to me.
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Luckily we headed to the storage room and looked through the old uniforms. We found a black one in my size that I could wear for the game. This became something we all laughed about, once I got over being embarassed.
How can we encourage students to discover their personal stories?
Mentor texts are a great way to show students that even the smallest moments in our lives are worth sharing. Textbook by Amy Krouse Rosenthal does an amazing job of demonstrating how the nuances in our lives make us who we are and can be really funny for readers to engage with. Other mentor texts such as Shortcut by David Crews are also key in demonstrating to students how a small moment can be turned into a descriptive and engaging story through the use of different strategies. It is so important for students to know that they can write about anything in their lives. Teachers should model selecting a topic and writing a personal story about it to encourage students in their own writing. I believe that it is important to select a topic that is relatable for students. I would not write about something that happened on an out of country trip, I would instead select something that happened to me in my everyday life that matters to me.
Strategies for helping students select topics
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Brain storm a list of small moments as a class that students could choose to expand. Such as being called up to the stage to receive an award, losing a tooth, or the moment where you are being caught doing something you are not supposed to be doing. (Mentor Texts, Chapter 4. pg. 93-94)
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Creating a heart map and using ideas from that map to reflect on important stories to write about. For example, the teacher could say, "Oh I love that place, can you think of something cool that happened to you there?"
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Teacher and students could create a list of writing territories together in order to have a list of broad topics that could be narrowed to smaller, more specific stories.
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Students could create a list of memories.
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Students could create a list of important people in their lives and share stories about that person with a partner. The students could then write that story.
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Students create a hand map, click on the button to see a detaled hand map lesson inspired by Mentor Texts.
Dorfman, L. R., Cappelli, R., & Hoyt, L. (2017). Mentor texts: teaching writing through childrens literature, k-6. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.