Narrative Writing

Dear Families,

Narrative writing is our first unit of writing this year.  In this unit, students focus on writing personal narratives from their lives.  Stories students write have characters, a setting, and a time order with a beginning, middle, and end.  They will read stories written by master writers such as Jane Yolen and Angela Johnson, and analyze what makes their stories so beautiful and powerful.

Lessons will teach students to ‘zoom in’ on the most important parts of their stories and focus on small moments. An example of a big moment is a child’s seventh birthday party. A small moment would be opening a favorite present, or singing happy birthday, or something special that happened. I am encouraging students to focus in on these small moments for their stories. They have each been given a small, spiral notebook which they are free to take from home to school. If something special happens, they should take a moment to jot down a few words to help them remember that moment during our writing time.

Students will also begin to make simple changes to make their writing more readable to an audience, taking the first steps in learning to revise their own piece. This is a chance for writers to develop their writer’s voice.  When writers tell how they feel or include a personal reaction, we are more connected to the story.  

Students will begin to learn to:

·        Focus in on a small moment from their lives and share details in order.

·        Use transition words appropriately.

·        Reread writing and add details or take away parts to make the meaning clear.

·        Edit writing for capitals, ending punctuation and spelling.

         

This unit touches on what Second Graders do best…sharing about themselves!  

What can you do to support your child at home?

• Talk about the small things that happen at home and encouraging your child to jot down writing ideas in their tiny topic notebooks.  
• Students often need a chance to verbally rehearse what happens first, next and last. We often tell our stories across our fingers stating, "First this happened..." while pointing to their thumb, "then this happened" while pointing to index finger, all the way to "last this happened", pointing to pinky finger.  
• Having your child tell a story and break it into these parts will be helpful.
• Have your child write... stories, letters, lists, cards. All writing is helpful! 

                                                                             Warmly,

                                                                             Ms. Petzold

This is what tiny topic notebooks look like:

Tiny Topic Notebooks

Hi Families,

You may see your child bring home a tiny topic notebook some evenings. This is a small spiral notebook in which I have encouraged your child to jot down ideas which they can turn into stories during our writing workshop. We are focusing on writing small moment narratives in which student authors are expected to zoom in on a small aspect of their lives to write about in detail. Instead of writing about a trip to the amusement park, they could write about going on a specific ride or getting the powdered sugar from fried dough all over their clothes. They could write, "Fried dough -- on clothes" in their Tiny Topic notebook to help them remember an event. If they see a deer in the backyard in the evening, they could write, "deer spotting." The idea behind the Lucy Calkins writing program which we use in Methuen is to turn students into writers -- have them think like writers, read like writers, and write like writers. We write daily in our classroom and writing is an essential part of the second grade curriculum.

If you have any questions or thoughts, please do not hesitate to e-mail me at cypetzold@methuen.k12.ma.us.

Enjoy the beautiful weather!

Ms. Petzold