Plan a Personal Narrative About Helping Someone Nearby

Talk about the memory first and decide where the big moment is. Fill the planner with notes, slow down at the big moment in the draft and end by looking back.

Read a made-up model about a first swim class, then plan a time you helped a neighbor with actions, dialogue and a reflection. Show, don’t tell means use actions. A reflection looks back. The directions on the page read: Read the model. Read the topic. Then, write who needed help and show the feeling. Then, fill in the 3 What I did boxes and the Dialogue box. Then, write a reflection ending. Then, use your plan to write your draft on lined paper.

Yes, both. We made it for 5th Grade narrative writing, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with personal narrative writing. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

It focuses on one true event, uses dialogue, inner thoughts and sensory details, slows down at the big moment and ends with a reflection (W.5.3). The waiting for something big planner asks how you felt at three times, then for a looking back box.

A flashback jumps back in time. The trusted with something important planner starts in the middle of the action, then goes back to how it began.

Pacing is how fast a story moves. Writers slow down at the most important moment with details and thoughts. The performance planner charts what happened and your inner thoughts before, during and after.

Only the two-page practice sheet has one. The ten planners are open writing, so check that each box made it into the draft.