EDUC 2220- Educational Technology Lesson Plan

Narrative Writing
Mara Miller
9th Grade English

Common Core Standards:

Text Types and Purposes
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, wellchosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
a. Engage and orient the reader by setting out a problem, situation, or observation, establishing one or
multiple point(s) of view, and introducing a narrator and/or characters; create a smooth progression of
experiences or events.
Production and Distribution of Writing
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate
to task, purpose, and audience.
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate
to task, purpose, and audience.
Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new
approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience
Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new
approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing
products, taking advantage of technologys capacity to link to other information and to display
information flexibly and dynamically.
Lesson Summary:
Students will be writing narratives about real life experiences about some form of hardship that they may have
been through. The purpose of this lesson is for students to develop the written skills to emotionally connect to
their audience, communicate an event clearly, and learn how to capture an audience. The lesson will be used as
an introduction into a bigger assignment. However, the goal is to merely discuss as a class the structure behind
the narrative concept.
Estimated Duration:
This lesson will be broken up into 2- 50 minute class periods, for a total of 100 minutes in 2 days.
Commentary: The approach to this lesson is to help students identify the parts of a narrative and how to make
their writing interesting to the reader. This is going to be done using a variety of different technology such as
Youtube, Prezi, and Smartboard Activities. What may be challenging to students is actually putting the
material we learn into practice. May be more difficult for students who already struggle with writing.

Instructional Procedures:
Day 1:

Introductory Assignment: Students will watch a short clip of the movie The Princess Bride and then
write an explanation of what happened. 10 min. They will turn these in but they will not be graded.

I will, give a short explanation that this is an example of writing a narrative. They have just explained the
characters, setting, and events of what has happened in the movie.

Explanations of the aspects of a narrative. 30 min. Prezi presentation on the aspects of a narrative.

Sample Components from lecture from Prezi:

1) Characters: Who are the people involved with the story?
2) Setting: Where is this taking place?
3) Action: What are the interesting events that are happening in this story?
4) Dialogue: How is the dialogue between the characters enhancing or detracting from the plot?

Ending activity: Students will pick an interesting event from their lives and write about it, using the
tools that we have discussed in the lecture. I will go around and help them brainstorm events that have
happened to them.

Day 2:

Introductory Assignment: Storytelling activity. I will break the students into groups of 4 and they will
tell a 3 minute story about what had happened to them from the event that they chose last class.

Powerpoint on how to write an interesting narrative 28 min.

1) Narrative killers: How to kill your narrative!

2) Show your audience what happened instead of telling them what happened
3) Dialogue: How it makes or breaks your narrative

Students will point their iPad at the QR code embedded in the Powerpoint and go to a sample of a very
boring narrative. Students will then critique said narrative and bring it to the next class, where the next
lesson will start

Pre-Assessment:
Students will be writing a short explanation of the events transpiring in The Princess Bride. They will be

turning these in and they will not be graded. This will give me an understanding of their ability to summarize
events.
Scoring Guidelines:
Students will not be graded on this assignment, but their involvement in this activity will be factored into their
participation grade.
Post-Assessment:
Their critique of the sample narrative and their re-write of it will help me understand what they have gathered
from the topics we have talked about. This will be a graded assignment.
Scoring Guidelines:
This assignment will be graded Pass/Fail. Pass will be if they took the time to explore what we had talked
about in class and made a real attempt to make the narrative interesting. Fail will be if their was no attempt to
correct the narrative.

Differentiated Instructional Support

I would use peer-tutoring with the students who are accelerated. I would challenge them to help the students in
the class who are struggling more with the material.
Discuss additional activities you could do to meet the needs of students who might be struggling with the
material: I would have the peer-tutoring relationship established with the accelerated students and attempt to
give them someone (whether it is me, or another classmate) to help them gather the information.

Extension
https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/make-writing-interesting.html
https://www.freelancewriting.com/creative-writing/write-an-interesting-narrative/

Homework Options and Home Connections

From Day 1: Students will create a three minute story about their experience. They can research good
storytelling methods and ways to make this interesting through Google and other resources.
From Day 2: Using the QR code they will have access to a boring narrative. This will connect them to a
Google document to which they will critique this narrative

Interdisciplinary Connections

Using storytelling as an outlet for lesson in History, explaining the tradition of many stories and
narratives being past down orally. (History)

Bringing into question changing the names of the characters in the story to make sure there is no issue
with the law (Ethics)

Materials and Resources:

For teachers

Access to Prezi, a Google account, Powerpoint, QR Code building software, and

Internet access

For students

iPad or tablet, notebook dedicated strictly to the class, Google account, and Internet
access

Key Vocabulary
QR code
Dialogue
Narrative
Additional Notes
Resources:
http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Ohios-Learning-Standards
www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/narrative-writing-lesson-plan.doc