Monday's Mission

         Narrative Elements-Those great things that make up stories.  Although my students can tell me what characters, setting, plot, etc. are, they have a hard time identifying those aspects in a story.  Go figure!!! What we may think is simple our students have difficulties with. 

         I have taught narrative elements in several ways, and decided I would share them with you.  The first one, I kind of came up with on my own.  (I’m very proud of myself!!)

1.     I created a PowerPoint outlining what the narrative elements are.  I used  Little Red Riding Hood as my sample story.  (This was chosen due to        student familiarity and the fact that I had some really cute clipart for it!)  So, I retold Little Red Riding Hood to my students, and used my clipart to show visuals of each of the narrative elements they are required to know.  After going over this with students, again, I gave short stories that I found.  My students then worked in small groups to identify the various narrative elements.  When they took their benchmark assessment, I found they did better because of the more direct approach.

2.    I found this idea on the Internet.  This lesson was more creative than the previous one, and I found not as many students understood what it involved.

                  *Materials:

                           -Apron

                           -Large cooking pot

                           -Stirring spoon

                           -Where the Wild Things Are

                           -A copy of the cover for Where the Wild Things Are

                           -Index Cards (LOTS)

                  *Lesson:

                           -I started the class wearing the apron and stirring my pot.  In the pot, I placed index cards with different narrative elements written on them. I explained to students that like a good soup, all good stories must have certain ingredients. I then had students give their own definition of each narrative element.  Afterwards, I read Where the Wild Things Are to my students.  They then worked with a partner to write down the different narrative elements we focused on (characters, setting, plot, theme, etc.).  After students were finished, I had them place their “ingredients” in the pot.  After “stirring” the ingredients together, I pulled out the cover of Where the Wild Things Are.  While my students certainly enjoyed this, I had to reteach the skill using a more direct approach.  I believe this is a good lesson to serve as an introductory to narrative elements. 

In the comments, share how you choose to teach narrative elements.