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Writing from Moments that Really Matter

Units of Study Narrative Writing Session 3

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Connection

  • Open up your notebook to the fast and furious writing you did at home yesterday. Remind your partner of the goal you set for yourself at the end of yesterday’s workshop, and then share how you went about generating your personal narrative topics.

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Strategies for Generating Personal Narrative Topics

  • Think of a person who matters to you, list Small Moment stories, choose one, and write the whole story.
  • Think about a place that matters, use pictures and quick notes to jot about the small moments that occurred there, choose one, and write the whole story.
  • Think of the first times or last times you did something, list Small Moment stories you could tell about each, choose one, and write the whole story.

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Strategies for Generating Personal Narrative Topics

  • Think of the moments that really mattered because you realized or learned something, list those moments, choose one, and write the whole story.

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Learning Targets

  • I can jot down moments that have really mattered to me.
  • I can think about moments when I learned something important about myself and other people and life.

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Teaching

  • Teacher demo of generating ideas for personal narratives by “remembering and listing times when I realized something important.”
  • Pay attention to the steps — you’ll be trying this work in just a minute.

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Moments I realized Something

  • The time I was frantic, after destroying something valuable, and my mom stayed calm and reassuring. I realized she would always help me, even though I didn’t always listen to her.

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Teaching

  • When choosing a powerful topic for a personal narrative, it’s helpful to brainstorm “times when I came to an important realization.” Then look for the one small moment from the list that feels the most compelling to write out long, in detail.
  • The stories about times when very strong feelings are attached — followed by an important realization — tend to make good personal narratives! These are ones that hold a deeper meaning (more than just the action that’s happening).

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Active Engagement

  • Make a quick list of the times when you realized something important. It helps to remember moments when strong emotions were felt and you learned a lesson.
  • Focus in on the moment when you were feeling those emotions most intensely, the moment when your realization was most acute. Refrain from telling a whole or very long story.

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Link

  • Look over the list you just brainstormed and write one of those stories, or you might go back to another strategy or story idea you’ve been meaning to put on paper.
  • Write FAST and FURIOUS!!!

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Mid-Workshop Teaching

  • To convey an emotion you felt, use the SHOW, NOT TELL strategy.
  • The most powerful writing isn’t loaded with endless fancy descriptions and clichés; it’s full of tiny, precise details. When in doubt, replay the scene in your mind. What did you see? Give us the tiniest details of the moment — the ones that made a lasting mark on you, ones that made it worth sharing.

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Share

  • Take a minute to think about your particular style of writing — how does it reflect who you are, what you learned in that moment, or what you’re hoping to make your reader feel?
  • Turn and talk to your partner about what you noticed in terms of your writing style.

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Session 3 Homework

  • Reflect on who you are as a writer and think about how that understanding can help you dig even deeper into the story you’re telling.
  • Use that knowledge either to develop one of the personal narratives you’ve written so far or to begin a new one.