Personal Narrative: Lesson Outlines and Examples

A personal narrative is a true story about an event or experience in the writer’s life that is important to the writer. A good personal narrative reveals something personal about the writer and shows the significance of the event to the writer.

This writing project is suitable for grade six and up, and takes about two weeks to complete.

Lesson 1: What is a personal narrative? What makes a good personal narrative?
Lesson 2: Deconstruct a few other personal narratives.
Lesson 3: Brainstorming
Lesson 4 – 6: Drafting and Revising
Lesson 7: Sharing
Materials
Personal Narrative Examples (grade 7)

Lesson 1: What is a personal Narrative?

Explain what a personal narrative is and read a mentor text. The mentor text you choose should be age-appropriate and should reflect the experiences of the students in some way. The New Yorker runs a Personal Narratives Contest for teens and offers some good models.

Ask the students what appeals to them or doesn’t appeal to them in the mentor text. Record their thinking. For the story Nothing Extraordinary, by Jennifer Kim, you might get a list of ideas something more or less like this:

Strong introduction – short sentence punchy sentence followed by a long one.
Narrow, clearly defined focus – this story focuses on a single incident at the mall.
Character descriptions – “I could see the heavy lines around Mom’s eyes and mouth, etched deep into her skin without luxurious lotions to ease them away.”
Dialogue – “Do you want it?” My mom repeated. “No thanks.”
Setting description – not much provided here but we get a sense of place -“High-classed neighbourhood”, the mall, packed with people.
Insight into the narrator’s thoughts and feelings – we know she is ashamed to be seen with her mom, we are aware of how she comes to accept and love her mom.
Interesting details – the clothes that her mother is choosing for her, adds a nice touch, given that the narrator is noticing what the people around her is wearing.
Logical sequence – good flow that makes sense, it’s easy to follow along.
Strong conclusion, we see a change or realization or personal growth. The ending of “No thanks” suggests that the narrator experiences a huge leap in maturity. She is less self-centered than at the beginning of the piece.
Purposeful and precise word choice. – “fleeting glances”, “scrutinized”, “yanked”, ” tossed”.
Varied sentence structure, sentences that are coherent and make sense.
Free of grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes

Co-construct a success criteria based on the recorded notes. Condense the list to five or six essential criteria. In addition to stylistic elements, be sure to add a word range, appropriate for the grade level.

Lesson 2: Deconstruct a few other personal narratives.

Have the students work in groups to read and deconstruct other personal narrative examples. The notes as well as the success criteria should provide them with the language for talking about . This kind of emersion helps to solidify a clear idea of what makes a good personal narrative. Having seen a few models, they will be able to evaluate their own work. Having student examples (not just remarkable ones like the ones in the New Yorker) helps to make the writing task feel achievable.

I like to ask the students to look out for different kinds of beginnings and endings.

The introduction usually sets the tone or reveals the writer’s attitude toward the experience. To establish the tone, the writer thinks about the effect he or she wants the essay to have on the audience—for example, to laugh, cry, or share the pleasure of a special time or place.

Think about the central idea of your personal narrative. What effect do you want your personal narrative to have on the reader?

A strong introduction also needs a hook to get the reader interested and motivated to read more.

Lesson 3: Brainstorming

I find that having them talk out loud is a good way to get the creative juices flowing. I ask them to tell a story to an elbow partner. Having the whole class stand in two lines facing each other is another way to do it. This way you can easily have them change partners and share a different story each round.

Another benefit of recounting the event aloud, is that the listener might ask questions that would force them to think more deeply or provide additional details.

Here are some places they might mine for story ideas:

Special Places, Trips, or Vacations
Trials and Tribulations
First Time or Day
Triumphs or Proud Moments
Friendships
Family Traditions
Growing Up
Mistakes
A time when they were lost or afraid

Lesson 4 – 6: Drafting and Revising

Allow a few solid, uninterrupted blocks for drafting and revising. During this time, I try to read part of each student’s work and offer feedback. I started with the neediest students who might have trouble even starting, in case there isn’t enough time to see everyone. I also create peer review sheets for them to use to collect feedback.

Lesson 7: Sharing

Allow one session for sharing. You could have them share in small groups, so that everyone has at least a small audience for their finished product. I like to ask permission to read a few to the whole class.

Materials

Personal Narratives Planning Sheet

Personal Narrative Examples (grade 7)

When you go on a roller coaster, your adrenaline starts pumping in your blood, your heart starts pounding in your chest, and then you start thinking, ¨Why did I get on ride this ride?¨ Well, that’s exactly what happened when I went on a roller coaster and had a battle with the scariest ride of them all, The Leviathan, at Canada’s Wonderland. It was the summer of 2019, I was with my Bible camp and we were going to Canada’s Wonderland. I was in a group called the ¨ride everything¨ group. Our group went to the Leviathan first and I was ready but scared at the same time. I was with my group in the line-up for the Leviathan. I was talking to one of my friends but I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about but we were probably talking about how nerve-racking it was to ride the Leviathan. We finally got up to the rows and I went in the middle row. But, once the ride started moving, though, I was petrified.

Everybody (in front of me or behind me) was screaming. We were on the part where you go upwards and then go down, I could see houses that were far from Canada’s Wonderland. Then we went down and every time we went up and down it felt like the ride went off the tracks. But at the end of the ride, I felt like I could ride anything. I conquered my fears of riding roller coasters like the Leviathan. I conquered my fear all thanks to a battle with The Leviathan.

In Greece, there is a forest on top of a mountain between my town and my grandma’s home. The forest stretched on for kilometer after kilometer. The trees are tall and wide. To get to my grandmas town I have to go through the beautiful forest.

Me, my mom and my dad went through the forest and I saw many animals, but the most interesting was the pack of Wolves. They were grey, some were small, some were big. They were as fast as our car. Also it made me feel like I was one with the wild life.

When I saw the wolves I felt calm. I felt my eyes glittered. I said, “Wow!”

I felt as strong love for wildlife. I thought about how they made human slavery illegal and they should also make animal killing illegal.

It was really happening, but I couldn’t believe it. I thought to myself ´´She’s probably just sick, she’s not going to die´´. Even though it was just a hamster, and it sounds like a silly reason to be worried, it was probably the only pet we would ever get. In fact, wasn’t even my hamster, she belonged to my sister.

The day before, Coco had been cold. And she couldn´t stand on her legs. She was very slow when moving. So my sister and I put the Coco into a small box and put a blanket on top of her and we had a carrot for her to eat. She was eating quite slowly. But soon after, she was fine and we thought she would be okay.

The next day, when I woke up, I went straight to her cage and she was sleeping on her side. I knew something was wrong because when Coco sleeps, she rolls herself into a ball which makes her look like an ice cream scoop. I picked her up, and she was worse than before! She was very cold, she couldn’t stand on her feet for a second, and you could can feel her spine!

At this point we were scared for her, but we still had hope. I thought to myself ´´She won’t die, she’s just sick´´. But a part of me knew something was going to happen to her. That morning we went to school reluctantly.

When we came back from school, we rushed to Coco’s cage. We opened the cage, we held our breath as we took out the box. Neither one of us spoke as we carefully unwrapped her.

That was my first encounter with death. I have no words for how I felt. All I wanted to do was cry and stay in my room. After a few days, the feeling went away and I started to enjoy doing things again.