Focus Lesson Planning Sheet

Focus Lesson Topic / Telling the Story From Inside It-Grade 4-5
(Adapted from Calkins and Kesler, 2006)

Materials

/ Teacher’s personal writer’s notebook with prepared draft showing a point of view that needs work, Qualities of Good Personal Narrative Writing anchor chart

Connection

/ Over the past several days, you have been busy planning your narratives, writing entries about your seed ideas, and crafting several leads. If you haven’t started your first draft yet, today is the day to get started! Before you get started on your drafts, I have an important lesson to teach you. Today I will show you how good writers write from the narrator’s point of view.
Explicit Instruction / In order to write a strong personal narrative, good writers put themselves into the skin of the main character – that is you, of course, just in a different time and place. They tell the story as if they are looking through the narrator’s eyes and watching the story unfold. As a writer, it can be difficult to maintain this point of view but it is so important if we want to write powerful, realistic stories.
I learned about seeing the story through the narrator’s eyes when I was writing a story about a time that I got some bad news.
[Note: The instruction in this lesson will be most effective if the teacher uses a true story from his/her life. The examples given here are paraphrased from Calkins and Kesler, 2006, pp. 94-95.]
In my story, I was washing dishes when the phone rang. I was up to my elbows in soap suds, so my sister answered the phone. I heard her say, “Hello?” In my story, I wanted to write about how my mother was on the phone and it was my mom saying that she had been to the doctor and she had some bad news. So I tried to write this [read or pretend to read from writer’s notebook]: My sister picked up the phone. It was my mom saying that she had been to the doctor. Then I realized that I couldn’t write the story like that. I was in the middle of washing dishes, so I didn’t answer the phone, my sister did. How could I know who was on the phone or what was said? I realized that my writing would be better if I wrote the story as it unfolded from my point of view. So, I revised my writing to read like this [read or pretend to read from writer’s notebook]: My sister picked up the phone. I heard her say, “What did he say?” and “Did he give you anything for it?” After she hung up she said, “That was Mom. She’s been to the doctor.” (Calkins and Kesler, 2006, p. 95).
In the second version of my story, I wrote as I saw it through my eyes. As the narrator, it is my job to write the story from my point of view and explain exactly how I experienced the events of the story.
Guided Practice / Once you get used to seeing the story from the narrator’s point of view it gets easier to notice when you have accidentally slipped out of it. Let’s practice. I am going to do some more writing in my notebook. Listen to my story and give me a thumbs-up if the point of view is working and makes sense, or a thumbs-down if slip away from my point of view.
[Write or pretend to write while telling story aloud.]
I stood alongside my bike at the top of the hill. My brother, Alex, and his friend, Brian, waited as I made up my mind. In front of me, the road lay like a ribbon. “I’m ready,” I thought. I swung my leg up, climbed onto the seat, and pushed on the pedal. [Pause – thumbs up.] Soon I was gently slipping down the road, faster and faster. The world zoomed past me: trees, boulders … browns, greens – a blur of color. [Pause – thumbs up.] Then I saw something dart out in front of me. Was it a squirrel? A chipmunk? I swerved to avoid it, lost my balance, and headed into the brush as the side of the road. [Pause – thumbs up]. My bike flipped and I went flying. Suddenly I saw nothing. [Pause – thumbs up.] My brother and Alex raced down the hill and then they went inside. Brian looked at Alex and wondered if I was alive. [Pause – thumbs down.]
(Calkins and Kesler, 2006, p. 95)
Briefly discuss the reason from “thumbs down” at the end of the story and how the story could be revised to restore the narrator’s point of view.
Send Off [for Independent Practice] / I want you to always remember that good personal narrative writers write from their own point of view. Seeing the story through your eyes as the narrator will help you to write true, exact details. I’ll add this to our Qualities of Good Personal Narrative Writing anchor chart.
Today during independent writing you should be drafting your story. If you haven’t done so already, find your favorite lead and copy it onto lined drafting paper. As you start drafting the rest of your story, remember to put yourself into the story and see the events from your point of view. Your story should be a step by step narrative of what you experienced in those moments.
Group Share / Allow time for several students to share their writing and their strategy for maintaining the narrator’s point of view.