Plan Your Story: Sequence of Events

Explicit instruction/Teacher modeling

• Tell students that narratives are stories that have a beginning, middle, and end. This means that they have a clear sequence, or order, of events.
• Explain that when writing narratives it can be helpful to plan out the sequence of events first.
• Tell students that you are going to write a narrative about a time in your life. Brainstorm what might happen at the beginning, middle, and end of your story. As you name events, write/draw them on index cards.
• Model how to use your index cards to make sure you're including each event in your written narrative. Begin to write your narrative in front of the class so they can see you using the index cards to keep your story on track.

Guided practice/Interactive modeling

• Have students turn and talk to a partner about a narrative they will write about. Have them share events that happen at the beginning, middle, and end of their stories.

Independent working time

• Hand out five index cards to each student. Explain that they will need to include events that happen at the beginning, middle, and end of their stories.
• Have students use their index cards to help them sequence events as they write their narratives.

Support: Have students write descriptions of the events on their index cards, but skip writing the entire narrative.

Enrichment: Challenge students to create a sequence map of their stories by visually representing what happens at each step.

• Assess how students are sequencing events as they write their narratives.

• Call on students to share their narratives. Allow time for other students to ask questions about the stories.