How to Explicitly Teach Elements of Narrative Writing

When I ask teachers about their biggest struggle with narrative writing, they always say the narrative elements. And I totally understand why. Trying to get students to fully understand and be able to apply the narrative elements successfully in their own writing is a challenge. You’re usually left reading bland essays that leave a lot to be desired. But getting students to apply those elements is doable. It starts with explicitly teaching the elements of narrative writing to your middle school students!

What is Explicit Instruction?

I want to make sure we are on the same page with explicit instruction. Explicit instruction isn’t about beating around the bush or hoping your students will catch on. It’s about directly teaching and modeling the skill.

Typically, explicit instruction includes some combination of a lesson over the skill, modeling the skills, and providing an opportunity for practice (and correction). Of course, that process will look different for everything you do, but I’m going to show you how it can look when teaching the elements of narrative writing.

How to Explicitly Teach the Elements of Narrative Writing

To start, I want to share the basic process I used when teaching narrative writing elements to students. In my workshop, Navigating Narratives, I dive super in-depth into this process and exactly what each stage looks like, if you want to learn more.

#1 Create a Unit Plan

In the Navigating Narratives workshop, I start by showing you a plan for a narrative writing unit. This isn’t technically part of explicit instruction, but if you don’t have a plan for how you’ll tackle each narrative element – it’s going to get messy (for you and your students).

Personally, I like teach the elements over ten days. This was a system I perfected after lots of trial and error. As students learn the elements, though, they are also applying them to their writing. By day seventeen, they will have a final draft of their essay. You can grab the narrative writing pacing guide and resources inside the Narrative Writing Unit.

#2 Use Mentor Texts

To start explicitly teaching, I typically presented my students with a mentor text. If you’ve read some of my other blogs, you know I’m a big fan of mentor texts. Mentor texts help students see the skill in action and give them a guide for how to replicate the element in their own writing.

Start by showing students a mentor text and telling them what they are looking at. For instance, “Let’s look at an example of dialogue.” Make sure the class is clear on what dialogue was, then say, “Take a look at this mentor text. In a moment, I want you to tell me what you notice. What stands out?” Then make note of key features of the mentor text.

(Not sure where to get mentor texts from? When you grab the Narrative Writing Unit, I provide you with all the mentor sentences and passages you’ll need! Plus, I even walk you through how to use it with students, so you feel confident teaching the lesson.)

#3 Create a Reference Page

The key features you just noted from the mentor text will then help you create a reference page. This is where you’re going to get super explicit and clear with students. Going back to the dialogue example, hopefully, students noted the use of quotation marks. If not, you will explicitly teach the grammatical rules of dialogue and add it to their reference page.

Essentially, you want students to walk away with a reference page that outlines the element of narrative writing, including key details and any rules. The reference page can also include the mentor text so students can look back at it later.

When you attend the Navigating Narratives workshop, I’ll walk you through this entire explicit teaching process in-depth, plus you’ll get access to the Narrative Element Teaching Slides, so you can easily walk students through each element – and don’t worry about missing a single detail.

Explicitly Teaching Elements of Narrative Writing

Okay, let’s get to the good stuff. We’ve talked through the general format for explicitly teaching elements of narrative writing, but now I want to give you some specific examples of how to do that.

Create Context

Students struggle to establish context. To help, tell your students to think about how they would explain the topic to someone who knows nothing about their story. They can use the characters thoughts or dialogue to do this. It doesn’t need to be long-winded details! To explicitly teach this, show them a mentor text example of creating context.

Narrative Plot Development

Students’ stories can be dull. That’s often because they lack a climax! To avoid this issue, and explicitly teach plot development, have students create a plot diagram and start by determining their climax. Then, they can outline the rest of their story. If they need help, try outline a popular story on a plot diagram to guide students.

Sensory Details

The easiest way to explicitly teach this element of narrative writing is, you guessed it, with mentor texts! Show students how sensory details look in other stories. Then, have them create a plan for how they will include sensory details on their plot diagrams. This will ensure that they build them into their essay.

Character Development

Start by having students think about a character they have loved from a book. Have them write down what made them love these character. Help them see how those concepts are what make great character development. Then, have students brainstorm how their characters can undergo change and growth their story.

Dialogue

Dialogue can be tricky because it’s not just about moving the plot forward – there are also grammatical rules to follow. Have students map out dialogue on their plot diagrams, so they can note areas were the dialogue would move the story forward or reveal important information.

Then, when it comes time to write, use the Narrative Dialogue Mini Unit (which is included inthe Navgating Narratives workshop) to talk through how to use quotations, commas, capitalization, and more.

Ways to End

The last narrative writing element we’ll cover is ending the story. This can be a tricky one to explain, so I recommend turning to the mentor texts! Choose a few stories with stellar endings (or use the one’s I recommend in the Narrative Writing Unit) and ask students what important things the author does at the end. Take a note of their responses and have them replicate that in their own story.
Teaching elements of narrative writing can be tough. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and it’s not a skill we often practice with students. But, it’s doable to have students write narrative essays you’ll be excited to read. If you need support with narrative writing, check out my Navgating Narratives workshop or grab the Narrative Writing Unit for every resource you’d need to teach a successful unit.