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Introduction

If you’re reading this, you may have already read The Fundamentals of (Re)designing Writing Units (Glass, 2017a), the foundational book to this (Re)designing Writing series. If so, you already understand the critical importance of writing to enhance student learning, no matter the subject. The second book in the series, (Re)designing Argumentation Writing Units for Grades 5–12 (Glass, 2017b), continues that discussion, emphasizing devising and conducting units of study centered on students writing an argumentation piece. This book, (Re)designing Narrative Writing Units for Grades 5–12, is all about writing a form of narrative and all it entails to produce a well-crafted piece. Although students can write an informational or argumentative piece based on narrative text, such as a literary critique or an essay, this text focuses on generating a narrative fiction or nonfiction written product.

Authorities in the field of writing have espoused the need for teaching narrative writing. In Carol Lee’s foreword to George Hillocks Jr.’s (2007) book Narrative Writing: Learning a New Model for Teaching, she encapsulates this importance:

Learning to write rich narratives offers access points for understanding the rhetorical moves employed by writers of great fiction, expands what students understand about rhetoric more broadly (i.e., critical semantic manipulation, functional uses of sentence structures, elements of narrative genres), and shows how this can transfer to writing in other genres. (p. vii)

In his text, Hillocks (2007) provides this compelling reason for teaching narrative writing:

First and perhaps most important, work on narrative, if we make it personal, is a way to examine the stories of our lives. Beyond that, it allows students to contribute to the body of literature they will study, understand more fully how the works of professional writers are constructed, and learn techniques that will be useful in other kinds of writing. (p. 1)

In English language arts, students might craft a contemporary realistic fiction piece with invented characters, setting, and plot. However, opportunities for crafting a narrative abound within many disciplines—not just English class. For example, in social studies, students can write historical fiction to demonstrate their understanding and educate readers on a particular time period with factually accurate events and characters. In science, students can compose science fiction to explore and speculate about topics such as environmental issues and natural disasters. They can also write detailed descriptions to accompany a model, such as one that describes the ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere interact. In mathematics, students can write a biography about a famous mathematician and the impact of his or her work.

About (Re)designing

I title these books (Re)designing because my goal is to help you rebuild or newly design and develop writing curriculum and deliver instruction with depth, rigor, and clarity. These books give you the guidance, tools, and wherewithal to be judicious and intentional about the following.

• Designing new units: Some of you may read these books and develop a writing unit from scratch. In the case of narrative writing, the work can focus on writing in a language arts class, align to a content area, or follow an interdisciplinary unit that culminates in students writing a genre within narrative, such as a mystery, realistic fiction, memoir, or biography.

• Revising existing units: Others may redesign an existing unit. This means you have taught a unit in the past or have one at your disposal and feel the need to revise all or part of it. Maybe you need to tweak lessons, make the culminating assessment more rigorous, add more engaging activities, write or revise guiding questions, and so forth.

• Critiquing a new or previously adopted textbook or curriculum: You may use what you learn to ensure the published material satisfies the need for rigor and aligns to standards and other goals. Some resources might include an overwhelming amount of effective (and ineffective) strategies, activities, assessments, pedagogy, writing ideas, and so on. With new knowledge, you can critique what is available and make conscientious decisions, such as revising, augmenting, or bypassing mediocre material you encounter.

The aforementioned foundation book, The Fundamentals of (Re)designing Writing Units, is a recommended prerequisite for each book in the series, including this one. The following briefly summarizes that book; if you are familiar with its topics, you might choose to forgo reading it and dive into this book’s focus on narrative.

• Chapter 1 summarizes the research related to writing and provides recommendations for instruction; an overview of the different writing types (narrative, descriptive, expository, persuasive); and their characteristics, purposes, and associated genres. It also features a writing continuum to vertically and horizontally plot standards.

• Chapter 2 focuses on the stages of the writing process, various instructional strategies, and resources for digital communities and technology to be used throughout the stages.

• Chapter 3 tackles the backward-planning approach to unit design with attention to the beginning stage—identifying standards and using them to articulate what you want students to know (K), understand (U), and be able to do (D), plus unit- and lesson-guiding questions.

• Chapter 4 focuses on evidence of student learning, particularly culminating writing assessments. It features types of performance assessments, writing prompts and examples, student writing checklists, and rubrics. This chapter also includes suggestions for using student writing models, grading, calibrating, and determining anchor papers.

• Chapter 5 moves to lesson design, specifically the gradual release of responsibility model for teaching a new skill, strategy, or process. It explains each phase of this lesson approach, a concrete lesson example, and ideas for differentiating instruction.

• Chapter 6 is all about launching the unit. The text describes piloting the unit and reflecting on lessons to perfect the design and provides revision suggestions for the next time you teach this unit.

I intend for each book to guide you in designing and conducting a seamless unit of instruction for writing, one that raises the bar for students and builds teachers’ capacity. All books in the series, including this one on narrative, contain templates, checklists, rubrics, writing prompts, assessments, instructional strategies, and more—all couched in a backward-design process—for you to plan a quality-driven unit that guides and empowers students to compose a sound written piece. (Visit go.SolutionTree.com/literacy to access materials related to these books.)

Who This Book Is For

This book is primarily for subject-matter teachers, curriculum designers, or literacy coaches who expect students to read and author narrative-oriented content in grades 5–12. The you I address refers to any reader invested in delivering or designing curriculum aligned to narrative writing in these grades. Those who serve elementary students may also find this book beneficial, as they can adapt the material as needed.

Although you can read this book independently, I recommend that you work with colleagues to plan the writing unit together. Consider working as a department, a collaborative group within the context of a professional learning community, or an interdisciplinary team, if appropriate.

Although language arts teachers are responsible for addressing a variety of writing and other literacy standards, other subject-area teachers might also ask students to produce a coherent and organized written narrative piece. As stated earlier, social studies, science, and mathematics, for example, present ripe opportunities for students to write. The choices are endless for infusing narrative writing in a single content area, in a core subject (humanities), or in an interdisciplinary situation where different teachers share students from across subject areas.

Consider collaborating with colleagues to identify which narrative writing skills each will target and teach to delineate expectations so teachers are not inadvertently missing skills or overlapping their instruction. For instance, if those who teach science communicate to the language arts teacher that students will produce a descriptive piece to accompany a science model, the language arts teacher can focus instruction on imagery and strong word choice. A social studies teacher can focus instruction around research to accumulate historically accurate facts about content while the language arts teacher can discuss the characteristic elements and structure of historical fiction. Teaming with others to divvy up skills and standards that each will be accountable for will help ensure an optimal written piece.

In The Fundamentals of (Re)designing Writing Units (Glass, 2017a), I discuss and suggest creating a writing continuum as part of a curriculum mapping project that a school or district can undertake. The continuum articulates genres and related skills across grades and subjects to provide transparency so you can plan and lead instruction accordingly to expose students to the essential writing practices. Doing so can avoid unnecessary repetition of instruction year after year on the same genre, such as a personal narrative or a realistic short story, focusing on the exact same expectations. You might consider spearheading or suggesting such a curriculum mapping project so students acquire a deep understanding of several genres across the years.

If you teach in a self-contained classroom, collaborate with job-alike colleagues to brainstorm and create a unit together. Logistically, you and others could generate a Google Doc (or utilize another electronic collaborative tool) so each can contribute to the pieces that will eventually make the final product a robust unit. Some of you may be in a small district, where you are the only teacher for one or more grades or content areas. Try to work virtually with colleagues in other counties or schools. Or consider collaborating with content-area teachers in or across appropriate grade clusters in your school and create a unit together to share. Even if these situations are not feasible, this book can still provide the necessary tools to re-envision what you teach and how you teach writing to your students.

About Timed Assessment

Although this book will prepare students for standardized writing situations that assess their narratives, it is not about students responding to an on-demand writing prompt in a timed situation. You might issue such a prompt for different assessment purposes before or during instruction to gauge what students know and to inform your instruction. This book focuses primarily on designing or redesigning a complete and rigorous narrative writing unit of instruction in which students advance through the steps of the writing process. As such, you can use an analytic rubric as an instructional tool and to score and gather information to improve the quality of students’ writing. When students participate in a demanding and engaging writing unit, it prepares them well for a district- or state-mandated test:

In schools with a major emphasis on standardized tests, teachers are prone to conclude that their own assessments must always approximate the nature of the year-end standardized test so students will be “ready” for that test when it comes.… However, we ought not to lose sight of the fact that if all teaching is proscribed by the very limited and limiting format of a particular test, students’ learning experiences are woefully restricted.… If they learn better because of how we teach and assess them, it’s likely they will fare better on standardized tests than if we insist on teaching them in narrow ways that are ineffective for them. When learning “works” for a student, that student is likely to enter a testing situation both more competently and confidently than would otherwise have been the case, and outcomes should be predictably better. (Tomlinson & Moon, 2013, p. 46)

Avoid aligning every task you administer to a standardized test-like prompt or situation. Teaching writing effectively across a range of genres supplies the necessary skills to embolden students to approach any writing situation with courage and assurance.

The Fundamentals of Narrative Writing

The following sections present a brief overview of the fundamentals of narrative writing and describe additional information available in the appendices at the end of this book, specifically:

• Appendix A: Narrative and Descriptive Text Types

• Appendix B: Elements of Literature

• Appendix C: Literary Devices and Figurative Language

If you require more guidance on narrative writing before you begin your work creating unit plans in chapter 1, refer to these appendices. While English language arts teachers and others conversant in narrative and descriptive text types, narrative genres, elements of literature, figurative language, and literary devices will likely find this information familiar, teachers from other disciplines looking to infuse narrative and descriptive writing into their subject areas might find this overview valuable. With that said, however, those familiar with these topics might still like to peruse the appendices to determine how the examples featured might be used within lesson planning.

Narrative and Descriptive Writing

Narrative and descriptive writing are text types also known as categories or modes of writing. (Expository and persuasive are the other two text types, the subject of other books in this series.) Any text type aligns to a writer’s purpose for crafting the piece—to entertain, inform, explain, and so forth—which in turn dictates other writing factors like audience and style. Various genres reside within text types, which represent different works that are grouped together because they share commonalities—like a distinctive style, form, or element. Table I.1, an excerpt from chapter 1 of The Fundamentals of (Re)-designing Writing Units (Glass, 2017a), lists the narrative and descriptive text types, their unique characteristics, the primary purposes of each, and the genres and subgenres within narrative writing, essentially serving as an outline for appendix A (page 123). Descriptive writing is interwoven throughout various genres across text types and doesn’t necessarily have dedicated genres, which appendix A addresses in more detail. Although this resource provides an overview of the most common narrative genres and subgenres, there are even more that you can find when conducting your own research. Furthermore, there are various definitions, classifications, and nuances within some of them.

Elements of Literature

The elements of literature—or narrative elements—are the heart and soul of fictional narrative. They include character, setting, plot, point of view, and theme. Without them, a work of fiction seems incomplete, undeveloped, or inadequate. These elements appear to some degree in nonfiction narrative.

Most standards documents list expectations around elements of literature for both writing and reading, including the English language arts Common Core (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices [NGA] & Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2010). The genre can affect the treatment, so students need to know which kind of narrative they are expected to write so they can make decisions about elements. For example, in historical fiction the setting is altogether critical to the telling of the story and affects characters, plot, and theme. In myths, the setting might be an ill-defined, amorphous, and remote past, but the principal characters are pronounced and can possess supernatural powers. In mysteries, authors fashion a plotline with a crime that launches the story.

Appendix B (page 131) presents a thorough explanation of each element for those needing this information or a review of it.

Literary Devices and Figurative Language

Authors select and employ literary devices and figurative language to suit the purpose for which they are writing and enhance a work of narration. Literary devices, such as allusion, analogy, mood, tone, flashback, foreshadowing, dialect, dialogue, irony, and others, are techniques that writers use to enrich and add dimension to their work.

Table I.1: Narrative and Descriptive Writing Overview

Source: Glass, 2017a.

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/literacy for a free reproducible version of this table.

Figurative language refers to simile, metaphor, imagery, personification, and hyperbole. It enhances setting, character, plot elements, feelings, ideas, and other content to make the text vivid, realistic or fantastical, and compelling. When authors use figurative language, they want readers to understand the connotation rather than the literal interpretation of their words. As a result, readers must use interpretation skills once they recognize and identify instances where the writer uses these figures of speech.

You can explore the definitions and extensive examples of literary devices and figurative language in more detail in appendix C (page 137) should you need this support or as a tool for planning lessons.

Book Organization and Contents Overview

This book takes a sequential approach to building a narrative writing unit. Therefore, many chapters include exercises suggesting how you can apply what you read, so that by the time you finish the last page you will have a draft of your unit ready to develop and pilot. For this reason, I suggest targeting a particular area of your curriculum in which producing a narrative is the culminating assessment.

Chapter 1 presents a host of options for developing and supporting narrative maps. You can download and use items from the sample template that feature learning outcomes and guiding questions as a resource for developing your own unit. Or use one of the two blank templates in the chapter and start fresh.

Chapter 2 includes suggestions and specific examples for crafting a preassessment and a performance assessment task aligned to narrative writing. In addition, I offer a narrative checklist and rubric to use during instruction that you can adapt for your teaching purposes; the latter is also used to score the final writing piece. Since presenting the checklist or rubric is critical to setting clear expectations, I share strategies for introducing and using these tools with students. The chapter also features grading suggestions.

In chapter 3, you will find a detailed example for teaching students how to write a setting with imagery using the components of the gradual release of responsibility design model. It includes the step-by-step sequence and student materials so you can conduct the lesson.

Chapter 4 focuses on strategies, resources, activities, and assessments specific to teaching skills related to narrative. You can use what this chapter features to redesign or build your own lessons—for example, learning experiences related to writing plot, theme, introductions for narratives, dialogue, and more.

Because reading and writing are intrinsically linked, chapter 5 features various strategies for teaching students to analyze complex narrative text and demonstrate understanding of it. Additionally, it includes ideas for students to study an author’s craft as a vehicle to make their own writing more effective.

Once you complete your narrative writing unit, it is time to pilot it and note what worked and what didn’t. In this book’s epilogue I suggest closing exercises.

As discussed in the previous section, appendices A, B, and C offer a thorough overview of narrative and descriptive text types, elements of literature, and literary devices and figurative language with literary examples respectively should you need more in-depth information. If not, you may bypass these sections or perhaps skim them to find and incorporate any of the material in lessons you devise. If you need a technical overview of dependent clauses and complex sentences to accompany a lesson in chapter 4 on sentence structure, read appendix D.

Next, appendix E lists a compilation of resources for you and your students that I have divided into sections for easy access. This list is a reference for many resources that I mention throughout the book, as well as additional ones you might find useful. As a reminder, the foundational book in the series, The Fundamentals of (Re)designing Writing Units (Glass, 2017a), lists general offerings and a comprehensive array of electronic tools and applications.

Finally, appendix F lists figures and tables for templates, checklists, rubrics, student activities, and more. Visit go.SolutionTree.com/literacy to access these free resources, which you can use to design your narrative unit and conduct lessons.