Supported Narrative Writing

We're working on writing narratives in class. We have designed and described settings as well as developed characters. This week we're attempting to put our ideas together to begin planning a narrative.

My group needs a more supported approach to writing a complete narrative, so we're beginning with sequencing and retelling a short clip from The Monster House

We started by watching the short clip and discussing what was happening at each moment. The boys were then given 11 short sentences to sequence by cutting and pasting in order.







Day two of the activity and we again watched the clip and revisited the text ordering from the previous day. The boys had remembered many of the new vocab.

Today's activity involved sequencing pictures - screenshots from the movie - that matched the text from day one.
Once the pictures were sequenced, the boys needed to write their own sentence to help retell the story.







The support provided was through Explain Everything on their iPads.

I made slides that had each picture and a range of vocab that the boys may need to use to write their retell. Each word had a matching recording so that they could listen to the words and not have to be able to read them. This helps push their writing beyond simple known vocabulary.
The Explain Everything activity was lined off the class site so that each kid could access and download it.



The boys were happily able to write their own sentences feeling supported and empowered to attempt new and more complex vocab in their story.