Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards:
W.6.3a
North Carolina - Standard Course of Study:
W.6.3.b
Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.
Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks:
W.6.3.a
Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an appropriate narrative sequence.
New York State Next Generation Learning Standards:
6W3a
Engage the reader by introducing a narrator and/or characters.
Tennessee Academic Standards:
6.W.TTP.3.a
Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a speaker/narrator and/or participants/characters.
6.W.TTP.3.b - Organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.
6.W.TTP.3.c - Create a smooth progression of experiences or events.
Wisconsin Academic Standards:
W.6.1
Compose reflective, formal, and creative writing, which may happen simultaneously or independently, for a variety of high-stakes and low-stakes purposes.
Arizona's K-12 Academic Standards:
6.W.3.b
Common Core State Standards:
Literacy.W.6.3b
Georgia Standards:
ELAGSE6W3b
Kentucky Academic Standards (KAS):
W.6.3.b
Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards:
W.6.3b
North Carolina - Standard Course of Study:
W.6.3.c
New York State Next Generation Learning Standards:
6W3b
Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and description, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
Tennessee Academic Standards:
6.W.TTP.3.d
Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and description when appropriate, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
Wisconsin Academic Standards:
W.6.2.b
Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons, relevant evidence, and literary theory.
6th Grade Writing - Narrative Writing Lesson
Narrative Openings
Narrative Opening
A narrative is a story about real or imagined experiences. Its opening is the first few sentences. A strong opening does two jobs at once. It engages the reader, which means it makes the reader want to keep reading. It also orients the reader, which means it shows who is in the story, where and when the story happens, and what is going on.
Engage the reader. Here are three ways a writer can draw the reader in.
Start in the action: begin in the middle of something that is happening.
Show a problem or a surprise: give the reader something to wonder about.
Share a strong thought or feeling: let the reader feel what the narrator feels.
Two openings to avoid are announcing the story, as in This story is about my trip, and giving away the ending in the first sentence.
Orient the reader. While the opening hooks the reader, it also sets up the story.
Establish the context: show where and when the story happens and what situation the characters are in.
Introduce the narrator: the narrator is the person telling the story. Tell the reader something about this person and why the moment matters.
Introduce each character the first time the character appears: give a name and a detail that shows who the character is, instead of only he, she, or someone.
Example:
Step 1: Engage the reader and set the context. Rafi replaces the announcement with a moment that shows a problem, a time, and a place.
On my first morning at Hillside Middle School, I stood in the cafeteria doorway with a full lunch tray and could not find one empty seat.
Step 2: Introduce the narrator and the character. Rafi tells the reader who the narrator is and who she is.
I had moved to town only two days before, so I did not know a single name. Then a girl named Bea, the captain of the sixth-grade soccer team, waved me over to her table.
Event Sequences
Event Sequence
An event sequence is the order of the events in a story. In a strong narrative, the events unfold naturally and logically. Each event makes sense after the one before it, so the reader never stops to wonder how something could have happened yet.
Organize the events in three steps.
Keep one timeline: tell the events in the order they actually happen, from the beginning of the story to the end.
Put each cause before its effect: if one event makes another event happen, the cause has to come first.
Test each event: ask whether it could happen yet. If an event depends on something that has not happened, move it after that event.
Watch for events that depend on other events. A character cannot read a letter before opening the envelope, and a crowd cannot cheer for a goal before the ball goes in. When one event depends on another, the order is not a choice. The event that has to come first in real life comes first in the story.
Example:
Step 1: Test each event. Sentence 2 shows the airplane gliding across the gymnasium, but that cannot happen yet, because Leo has not added the paper clip or thrown the airplane. Sentence 2 depends on the events in sentences 3 and 4.
Step 2: Move the event after its cause. The throw causes the flight, so sentence 2 belongs at the very end.
Leo folds a sheet of notebook paper into a sleek paper airplane. He carefully bends a paper clip onto the nose so that the airplane will fly straight. He throws it as hard as he can toward the far wall. The airplane glides smoothly across the gymnasium and lands on the stage.
Narrative Techniques
Narrative Techniques
Narrative techniques are tools a writer uses to develop the experiences, events, and characters in a story. Three important tools are dialogue, the words characters say aloud; pacing, the speed at which the story moves; and description, details that help the reader see, hear, and feel what happens.
Use dialogue that does a job. Strong dialogue does at least one of these two jobs.
It reveals a character: the words show how the character feels or what kind of person the character is.
It moves the events forward: the words name a problem, share a plan, or lead to an important decision.
A line such as Hi, how is everything? does neither job, so a writer revises it.
Control the pacing.
Slow down with detail at the most important moment, and show it step by step with actions, sounds, and the narrator's thoughts.
Speed up with a summary through the parts that matter less, such as a long bus ride, because one sentence can cover an entire hour.
Choose description that develops the story. Describe the things that help the reader understand a character or feel the main event, and place the description where it matters most. In a story about a nervous speech, My note cards shook in my hands develops the narrator, but The stage had a blue curtain does not.
Example:
Step 1: Ask what the line does now. The single word Oh does not reveal much about Max, and it does not move the events forward either.
Step 2: Give the line a job. Ava lets Max reveal his feelings and share a plan at the same time.
"Grandma's party starts in two hours," Max said, grabbing his jacket. "I am running to the store for more eggs."
Now the reader sees that Max cares about Grandma, and the story has a next event.
Example:
Step 1: Speed up the part that matters less. The long list of things outside the bus window slows the story down at an unimportant part, so a short summary fixes it.
An hour later, we reached the lake.
Step 2: Slow down the most important moment. The jump is the high point of the story, so Ivan adds details.
I curled my toes over the edge of the dock, counted to three, and leaped. For one long second, I hung in the air, and then the cold water closed over my head.
6th Grade Writing - Narrative Writing Lesson