Narrative Writing II: Due February 24

This week, please respond to one (or both) of the prompts below:

OPTION 1: In class, many of you expressed interest in using mentor texts to teach narrative writing. What texts are you required to teach (or do you choose to teach) that you would like to use as springboards for narrative writing? What, if anything, have you tried so far? What concerns do you have or trouble spots do you encounter as you are using mentor texts to teach narrative? What insights can this week’s readings offer?

OPTION 2: Reflect on one of the “Other Resources” (on the right side of the Course Schedule) from any of the weeks we have covered so far. What challenges, questions, or ideas does this resource inspire? How does it relate to education broadly and to your own classroom in particular?

In your response, please remember to keep in mind the rubric. A brief overview:

  1. Approximately 200-250 words
  2. Specific reference to the assigned reading.
  3. Description of lesson idea, activity, resource, and/or mentor text. Please include a link to the resource when possible

16 thoughts on “Narrative Writing II: Due February 24”

  1. This weeks reading of, “Momentos de Cambio: Cultivating Bilingual Students’ Epistemic Privilege through Memoir and Testimonio” (Handsfield and Valente) illustrates how identifying a “momento de cambio” or, moment of change can be used as an anchor for literacy that allows students to create, experience and practice the skill by applying the “moment of change” to various types of narrative. In Handsfield’s and Valente’s experience, teaching a unit based in narrative writing allowed students to identify these moments in their narratives, the narratives of peers and apply this to other forms of literature and media; Students applied their knowledge, which was experienced rather than taught. Furthermore, the use of narrative writing allowed students and teachers to truthfully experience each other’s stories rather than the traditional dichotomy of student and teacher relationships. The “being human” aspect (not traditionally encouraged in the NYC DoE), allowed for a safe and comfortable space for students and teachers to tell their stories safely and comfortably.

    In addition, the lack of traditional mentor texts, and use of “Finding Nemo” and “Aesop’s Fable” as “mentor texts” eliminates pandering as well as, “high stakes” reading skills that literature often assesses and measures. The use of these texts allowed students to use: “the concept [momentos de cambio] to claim interpretive authority by interpreting and naming the personal narratives and experiences of others in the classroom beyond their memoirs.” (150) The use of writing enables the student to see beyond their writing and analyze the writing of their peers and taking their application a step further to literature as a whole. Given that this is a fourth grade class the texts Handsfield and Valente chose, are not only appropriate but allow ALL students to access the mentor texts, an enviable feat. This makes me more enthused to use what are commonly referred to as “story books” in my 8th grade class, which have been basically shunned by most administrators, by using texts like, “The English Roses”, by Madonna, a very “juvenile” style book that has very real and relevant topics (kindness, bullying, friendship, self-esteem, “mean girls”, etc.) to highlight the human experience that is implicitly referred to throughout “Momentos de Cambio”. Using a personal story, relating it to a “storybook” and applying this to literature as a whole gives students the opportunity to create, experience and use a skill that can be applied to literacy as a whole which is invaluable in the classroom.

    One concern I have about this is getting students to “publish” or share their personal memoirs with one another and picking “the right texts” that elicit the same reaction and willingness that Handsfield and Valente did for their students. I think I have some great resources but based on psychological needs (the need to fit in as opposed to standing out), students in 8th grade don’t always feel comfortable taking a risk, sharing, “publishing” their stories–to be honest, I’m not sure most adults do. During an “About Me” narrative writing unit on Identity, most of my students who have known each other since kindergarten did not want their stories shared or published on our own bulletin board, even after we(teachers) were extremely open, honest and vulnerable with them in our models. I am left wondering, is it me? My students? My models? Their age? I want students to write and publish experiences from personal memoirs as well as apply their “interpretive authority” as a skill, I’m just at a loss for how to get them to do this in my classroom.

  2. One mentor text that I often used to teach narrative writing was Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. When it comes to personal writing, the interview format (and topic-organized) format of the text was helpful for students to use. Although I often used this text for students to interview faculty members and tell others’ stories using interviews, this text has also worked with helping students write about themselves. The text brings up heavy questions and funny stories that students can use as inspiration for their own. When using mentor texts, students often duplicate the story, rather than thinking outside of the box. For this reason, Tuesdays with Morrie can work well, because the questions that Mitch asks Morrie are open-ended; high school seniors will certainly have different answers than a married, elderly sociology professor with ALS. By answering Mitch’s questions for themselves or thinking about how they feel about Morrie’s stories, students can have the beginning of a narrative. In her narrative unit, Song found that writing gave students an opportunity “to participate in such moments of self-discovery can inspire them to produce counter-narratives and asset-based accounts of their experiences” (2019). In a similar way, Tuesdays with Morrie is a participatory text, with no set right answers and a purpose of making us reflect on our own stories that we can tell. The text also has its cons: I’m sure we can find a similar text that utilizes translanguaging or tells a story from a different person’s perspective (other than an upper middle class, elderly white man). Also, I do recommend this text for seniors, however, since the questions in the text (about relationships, regrets, and losing loved ones) can get intense for younger students.

  3. A particularly resonating resource provided from the course schedule was the article, “Create Safety by Modeling Vulnerability,” by Amanda Blaine. The author describes a moment in teaching in which she shared a personal memoir to her class. She regards this instant as scary, and expresses this to her students in order to arouse courage and respect within the classroom, and more importantly, allow students to experience a safe place in which they can authentically share their own vulnerabilities. This is always an interesting idea to me, as I feel the need to practice vulnerability in stages, but I often wonder if that expression of vulnerability can render me as fragile, or reduce my role in the classroom. But upon that reflection, I understand that the idea of the “role” I refer to is an authoritarian one – the all-knowing instructor that prefers the ability to exercise power rather than to understand student experience with a just sense of humanity. Blaine addresses this when she regards offensive comments with respect and care, rather than anger or blame.

    A text I have referred to in a previous posting, but one that I am constantly attempting to adopt into my own teaching philosophy, which is bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. In it, hooks echoes Blaine by describing an ideal type of learning space in which “the union of mind, body, and spirit” is vital to achieving self-actualization in educational spheres. She describes a “holistic”, honest model of learning in which both students and teachers can grow, but claims that empowerment will not happen without vulnerability and risk. She writes “It is often productive if [teachers] take the first risk, linking confessional narratives to academic discussions so as to show how experience can illuminate and enhance our understanding of academic material” (21). The practice of vulnerability as teachers can allow us to cultivate an educational (and potentially, healing) space in which the experiences of students are validated, analyzed, understood.

  4. When teaching narrative writing, I use mentor texts that inspire creativity and encourage students to think outside of the box with the writing process. Springboard texts I use include 14,000 Things to Be Happy About by Barbara Ann Kipfer, Micro Fiction: An Anthology of Fifty Really Short Stories by Jerome Stern, and The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry by Rita Dove. These are unconventional mentor texts I use to emphasis point of view, description, and syntax amongst narrative writing, while encouraging students to write in a nontraditional way to bring out their narrative. I have tried all of these mentor texts and they have been successful in having students telling their story non traditionally. The trouble spots I encounter when teaching narrative writing ties to anchor texts, as I struggle with teaching a novel and narrative writing together–therefore I teach them independently. The closest I’ve gotten to using an anchor text with narrative writing, includes a code switching letter activity I created, however I feel this barely touched the surface of narrative writing. The Ah-Young Song reading offers me insight on how to individualize narrative writing, specifically with students“freewriting on a topic about which they [feel] passionate [about]…Topics ranged from school issues such as bystander intervention to personal beliefs such as self-love to disciplinary interests such as coding” (76). This activity is useful for my students to branch off of free-write topics I provide, while individualizing their narrative to write and share within their comfort zone.

  5. I agree with Michelle that using Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom is a great mentor text to teach narrative writing. I feel that the novel brings up valuable lessons and thought-provoking questions about life to its readers. It follows the story of Mitch and how through reconnecting with his old professor, he realizes how much he still has to learn about himself. Through conversations with his professor, Mitch learns about life, love, death, loneliness and thinks about if he is really living his life to the fullest. I feel that the lessons that Mitch learns from Morrie are things that we can all relate to. The reason I think that the novel is great to teach to high school students is because it covers topics that they will find interesting and some that they may relate to. I think that by reading this novel, students will realize that literature can relate to their lives and help readers deal with real-life issues. I created a unit a few semesters ago on Tuesdays with Morrie and assigned a journal prompt for the students to answer that allowed them to reflect on their lives in connection to the novel/chapter they were going to read that day. I think that although they may not relate directly to Mitch or the professor, they can use the different topics they talk about to reflect on their own lives and help with narrative writing. Some journal prompts included: What does the word “family” mean to you?, think of an event or person that pushed you to become the person you are today. In her poetry unit, Song talks about how the students’ reflections helped them to rediscover parts of themselves as well as their position in the world (2019). I think that through self-reflection, students will be able to see how our relationships with others help to foster or hinder our growth and that ultimately, the individual, whether it be Mitch or the reader, has the ability to change how each of us lives but even more so, has the ability to change society if we want to. A concern that I have using mentor texts to teach narrative is that students may feel that there is a correct way to answer these deeper level questions or that some topics may be difficult for students to talk about.

  6. Within my own classroom, I have found that incorporating engaging and impactful mentor texts would be the most useful for students to use as springboards for narrative writing. I had chosen two different mentor texts based on the interests of my classes; two classes worked with The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and the other class worked with Names/Nombres by Julia Alvarez. Both of these texts allowed students to complete a story arc, in order to analyze the structure of the stories. Since identifying components within a story arc is a problematic area for my students, I wanted them to understand their importance and impact within these mentor texts and use them as a model to create their own narrative pieces. The school that I currently teach in was not in favor of bringing mentor texts inside the classroom, since we do follow a Pearson curriculum, which did not give me much room to really expand on the ideas and make use of these mentor texts to their complete capacities. One major concern that I encountered while using mentor texts was the lack of creativity within the classroom. Most of my students tried to relate their writing to the mentor texts and struggled to come up with an idea of their own. While I did bring in the mentor texts for inspiration and a model, the students felt that they needed to come up with a similar writing piece without adding their own creativity within it. Within the article, “Voice and Experience: Forming Counter Narratives through Personal Poetry” by Ah-Young Song, students had completed a prewriting exercise based on a “contemporary social issue of interest or a formative personal memory” (2019). After students had completed that exercise, students were given an ample amount of time to “brainstorm, conference, and begin their drafts” (2019). This did add insight to my own practice within teaching narrative writing, in terms of adding in more conference time with my students. If my students had completed a prewriting exercise and had worked with my co-teacher or myself to build upon their ideas, it may have been a smoother transition into their rough drafts. Since the lack of creativity has been a common problem amongst students, the one-on-one conferences would’ve allowed me to lead them in the right direction and spark some creativity along with components needed for narrative writing.

  7. Teaching narrative writing in middle school is something that I have found to be the most challenging. In my first unit, I taught “Inside Out and Back Again,” by Thanhha Lai, a book of narrative poetry that is written from the perspective of a 10-year-old Vietnamese refugee during the Vietnam War. While the book was rather “easy” for my students to read and comprehend, using it as a mentor text for narrative writing/poetry about their own experiences was rather challenging. It wasn’t the content necessarily, but the reluctance of students to divulge into their own personal narratives. It came to my attention that in previous years (6th /7th grade ELA) students had not done personal/narrative reflections or writing assignments, as everything was done by Engage NY for these correlating years and did not feature any forms of narrative writing assignments. While rather alarming, I did want to experiment with some narrative writing. As an introductory assignment, I tried using free-verse poetry with a plethora of student-choice prompts for reflection. Much like the Ah-Young Song reading states, ” Poetry can allow for fissures and productive slippages across moments as students re-member and dis-member certain experiences to make sense of the human condition.” I truly believed that students would, at least some students, connect more with writing if it was a personal experience. However, it didn’t necessarily result in pieces that were academically appropriate or serious.

    We did several Free Write Fridays where I used themes in the poetry novel as a jumping off point for their narrative assignments, such as “What does “home” mean to you?” “Do you believe home is a place, or can it be something more than that?” While some students thrived in these assignments, the vast majority of my students struggled, as my population of students do not excel with lack of structure in writing assignments. Unless I am specifically telling them what each, individual paragraph should contain (including how many sentences, and what format/flow/direction should look like), they struggle to find motivation or to complete writing tasks.

    Moving forward, I have decided to swap out one of the school novels, “The Boy In The Striped Pajamas” for “Night,” as I feel that using a memoir like “Night” will help students key into narrative writing more so than before. Using such a strong piece of writing can possibly give students a better look into narrative writing, specifically under adverse conditions and life circumstances. I’m hoping that the text can be a better mentor text for narrative writing instead of a poetry memoir, as many students struggle immensely with poetry.

  8. I try to incorporate narrative writing in some form or another into every unit I teach. These narratives take many different forms: essays, vignettes, speeches, poems, skits, etc. I typically incorporate narrative essays (particularly those that may be found on college applications) into the Colonial Literature unit near the beginning of the semester. I use excerpts from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. Re-teaching this mini-unit this semester, I’m planning to add a couple of short texts written in the twenty-first century. I have decided to make these additions largely because the biggest drawbacks these mentor texts have are their age and the datedness of the language. I use this to highlight the fluid nature of language and the power of a good story, but it does little to make up for the fact that we literally speak a different dialect of English.

    I typically introduce the narrative essays mini unit through a direct instruction lesson in which we define what the elements of a personal narrative essay are: plot, character, setting, point of view, theme, dialect, and imagery/figurative language. We discuss what these elements are used for and how we can go about locating them as readers. Then, we closely read our mentor texts multiple times, accounting for both content and the elements of narrative. In revision and peer review, students annotate student-generated texts similarly.

    One thing I have not done with my students so far since working at HSCL–in fact not since I was tutoring individual students–is write alongside them and share my work in progress as a model. I’ve come with pre-written drafts to use as exemplars, of course, but the process of writing publicly, as described by Handsfield (145). I am interested in the benefits of both write- alouds and just silently writing on a projector while students are writing themselves.

  9. Option 1- It would be tough to decide on what text would be best for demonstarting narrative writing to a class due to th variety of styles that exist. A text, or excerpt, we must teach when doing narrative writing is from Call Me Maria. This isn’t a bad excerpt to teach narrative writing since it does contain many of the literary elements and syles common throughout a narrative piece. Despite the positives, I would like to expose students to different types of writing to show that there is no one right way. A good text that I wil be required to teach is Monster. Monster is written as a combination of screenplay and novel. This text would be a good way to show students thhat they can mold their writing into what they want, or even clash different styles. Graphic novels such as the Babysitters Club would be another avenue foor those who are more artistically inclined. I have tried to use Call Me Maria to help guide students to uunderstanding the fundamentals of narrative writing. Showing them how a conflict develops and how characters change throughout a story. This was greeted with mixed results. Some students seemd to get it, but others couldn’t grasp it. Even after having them idenitfy and analyze the different parts of the story and breaking down using a plot diagram, many struggled. They felt as if they lacked the creativity to construct something new. This was the main hurdle I always encountered. The “I’m not creative” or “I have no imagination”. In those cases, I tried to give them some prompts to help get the motor running for them. The article makes mention on page 140 that students back stories should be legitimized (Valente 140). This is an interesting notion because students who may be dry on ideas can tap into their own experiences. They can use their perosnal stories as a basis to help them develop a narrative. This was furthered in the article with the use of memoires. Having students foocus on the significant moment of their lives and buliding a framework from there was something I didn’t think of when initially teaching narrative writing (Valente 146).

  10. Handsfield and Valente (2016) gave me great insight into creating narrative writing assignments during Night. As Valente describes and writes “this unit had to be about more than writing; it had to be about building relationships through writing, which meant going on the journey of self-exploration with them.” I think Night by Eli Wiesel lends itself to narrative writing because it is technically a memoir. Now as it is my third year teaching the book, I want to extend beyond the graphic organizer and writing activities, and identifying themes and move toward students fully engaging with this text and relating to their lives. One of the biggest struggles of teaching Night is getting students to access uses of empathy when reading the book. Unfortunately, many students do not grasp the brutality of this time in history. I mostly rely on shock value for students to understand what we are dealing with, I feel like if I take a “Moment of Change” narrative writing approach for students. Night lends itself to many great writing elements such as imagery, metaphor, mimicking the novel in itself.

    As writing stamina is the biggest issue with my students, many of my narrative writing approaches will need scaffolded instruction and pre planning. In order to do this, it would take the course of the unit to create this written product. A resource I found would be a good start: which asks students about a time they faced adversity. Similar to Valente’s (2016) students writing a “moment of change” narrative. More specifically they give students choice to write about when they were an ally to someone, when they were a victim of a perpetrator, a bystander to witnessing something immoral or unjust; The following page then specifies what the narrative writing piece itself should contain, almost a checklist. The categories: “Dialogue, Character Description, Setting Description, Blocking, Figurative language, Interior Monologue, and Point of View” would all require multiple pre planning lessons. This lesson would best be approached as a portfolio unit. I worry about timing to create this written piece and department mandated essays.

    Night narrative writing assignment https://www.matsuk12.us/cms/lib/AK01000953/Centricity/Domain/197/Night%20Narrative%20.pdf

  11. As we discussed in class last week, many of our students have not really learned to write narratives. With so much emphasis on Regents tasks, many do not know how to express themselves through their writing. In my own classroom, I have struggled with how to best scaffold for ELL students especially. For our Regents tasks, I have essay frames, checklists, organizers , sentence starters… However, I do not have a toolkit for narrative writing.
    Last year I tried the text message conversation organizer Nyree is presenting today. It was at the end of “Romeo and Juliet” and I was trying to convey how miscommunication played such a large role in the tragic ending of the play. A few pairs of students ran with it but many pairs didn’t know what to do. I found “Momentos de Cambio: Cultivating Bilingual Students’ Epistemic Privilege through Memoir and Testimonio” to be an interesting place to start. It provides structure to students so they do not become lost in a task. Because we are asking students to reflect upon a specific point in time, they can focus on one event. By using this moment to open their writing, they can write about this major life moment (immigrating to the U.S., a realization or time of growth, the loss of a loved one.) From there, they back out what lead up to this event. This provides a way for them to organize their thoughts in a linear and organized way.

  12. In reading this week’s articles, Momentos de Cambio: Cultivating Bilingual Students’ Epistemic Privilege through Memoir and Testimonio, I was able to draw some parallels from my own personal experience. The authors write, “students’ experiences are locations from which to interpret and speak back to the world, offering students epistemic privilege: knowledge and understandings that may flow from experiences of injustice or inequality that enable them to understand and communicate complex ideas about the world (Moya, 2002).” It’s this idea that students are acquiring complex understandings of the world from their “experiences of injustice or inequality”. To a marginalized individual/student the concept of injustice takes on a whole new meaning. In English testimonio translates to testimony, and it loses its power in translation, in Spanish it takes more of a nurturing and caring tone. Testimonios or Momentos de Cambios definitely creates this space in which students feel that they can share their stories and counter these negative deficit assumptions. Additionally, Latina/o critical theory is a new concept to me but it seems similar to critical race theory.

    The authors write, “DeNicolo and González (2015), examined Latina/o emergent bilingual students’ use of testimonio during a writing unit to counter deficit assumptions. Similarly, Dutro (2009) explains that critical witnessing in classrooms can facilitate both attending closely to children’s everyday testimonies while also consciously noticing and resisting deficit discourses of historically marginalized students and families.” When listening to a person’s memoir, especially that of a student who has experienced trauma it requires the teacher and even student to listen critically. The act of evaluating a student or having other students evaluate the presenter of such a testimonio takes away from this activity. Introducing testimonios while teaching narratives is definitely something I want to try out in the future!

  13. Teaching narrative writing has always been a bit challenging for me for two reasons, the first being that there have been many times when I have wondered how I might help my students to work to analyze the events of their life as opposed to merely recounting them. The second being my hesitation to numerically evaluate their life stories. That being said I was excited to have the opportunity to drive into these readings on narrative writing. I very recently completed an assignment with my students which required them to compose a text message conversation between two characters from the short we read as a class. This exchange asked students to display their understanding of the stories’ characters by creating txt message chains from 3 different places in the story. My intention was to assess the students’ understanding of the development of a character over the course of a story without the pressure of having to write the standard 5 paragraph essay. After all, what is text messaging if not conveying a story in small spurts? The article written by Handsfield and Valente teachers combated students’ tendency to write surface level narratives by having them zero in on a “moment of change” and discuss what happened before the moment and how their lives were different after. This strategy, having students identify a significant event in their life and work to write about their life before and after this event causes them to move beyond what happened (summarization) and begin to think about what led to this event and how it impacted their life thereafter. This is moving students away from merely recalling an event to beginning to analyze it. I am most definitely going to be using this activity with my students.

  14. One text that I have used in the past is “The Outsiders” by S.E Hinton. One of the reasons I like to use this text is because teenagers often see themselves mirrored in this text. Even if they do not see themselves, the entire book is based on teenage issues that all teenagers experience. Not only do students become engrossed in this novel because of the social issues it brings up; The novel does an excellent job creating characters. Not only does this novel have an abundance of diverse characters, they are all characters that you care for, and empathize with in different ways. I always use this text to teach students characterization. I believe that understanding characterization is one of the most important skills when developing a narrative. S.E Hinton also does a good job of exposing the softer side of these characters. These vulnerable characters give students the chance to open up as well in their own writing. Handsfield and Valente discuss in their article “Momentos de Cambio: Cultivating Bilingual Students’ Epistemic Privilege through Memoir and Testimonio,” about how narrative writing must be “more than writing; it has to be about building relationships through writing, which means going on a journey of self-exploration” (Handsfield & Valente). I think that this focus on character building not only teaches students a valuable narrative writing skill, but also gives them the chance to explore their own character. One issue I have with “The Outsider,” is that all the characters are white. I used it this year simply because it was what the school had used in the past. However, in the future I would like to find a novel that focuses on characters that are not all white.

  15. I attempt to teach my students how to write engaging and powerful narratives that allow them to present their own worlds to those that would otherwise overlook them. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of teaching students how to write narratives is to get them to feel comfortable enough to start writing. Many students have stated on multiple occasions that they don’t know how to start writing their narratives, a symptom from constantly having their personal thoughts, opinions, and ideas moved aside to make room for writing that is centered on informative and argumentative pieces in preparation for state tests. This is an issue that echoes past the halls of my school and extends out into school districts throughout the United States, particularly schools that are attended heavily by students of color.

    Lara J. Handsfield and Patricia Valente’s article, Momentos de Cambio: Cultivating Bilingual Students’ Epistemic Privilege through Memoir and Testimonio, discusses how one teacher, Patricia, “reframed a district-mandated writing unit on memoir,” by prioritizing students’ authority within the classroom so that they can be allowed to detail their moment of change that they experienced (139). It is not secret that students tend to hide these experiences within themselves, especially at a young age. By using relevant writing tasks such as the moments de cambio’, students have a chance to flush out their writing beyond a superficial level and into the real of real and touchable. In my classroom, one mentor text that I found to be incredibly useful in helping my students to learn narrative writing is Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. The style of the text is written in free verse poems that are visualized in the pages through the authors point-of-view, giving students an immersive dive in the mind of a young boy growing up in a tough neighborhood that doesn’t know how to deal with the death of his big brother in a housing complex. What I normally do to teach students how to write narratives is to write an ending to the novel since it has an ambiguous ending that really leaves it open for readers to make their own ending.

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