Q&A Continued: A Guide to Narrative Writing Genres

Do you remember our last Q&A in which teachers at a workshop asked me to help them break down the informational writing mode into different genres they could teach at different grades / levels? And I made a guide?

I received so much feedback that this is exactly the kind of things teachers need to help them figure out what a mode of writing looks like in the real world and how to differentiate it so that students aren’t writing the same “persuasive essay” year after year after year.

So, I’m going to make them all.

Up next, narrative writing.

Earlier this year I shared a personal essay unit rooted in Trevor Noah’s memoir Born a Crime. Here is a guide to four different kinds of narrative writing that builds in rigor.

The guide includes:

• A continuum of narrative writing

• Mini-lessons that make narrative writing sing, regardless of which narrative product students are creating

• A how-to for using the continuum in your own classroom, as a grade level, or as a department.

• Descriptions, tips, and mentor texts for each kind of narrative writing (22 mentor texts!)

• A nod to and mentor texts for alternative forms of narrative: graphic narratives and narratives-in-verse

I can’t wait for you to see this! (And for members, it’s free!) Download your copy at the link below and let me know what you think in the comments!