Narrative writing goes hand in hand with reading skills. In order to create narrative writing, the students as readers first learn to examine “the elements of story structure-plot, setting, character, theme, and point of view” and then as writers they get to “apply these elements in writing stories” (Tomkins, 2008, p. 211). With narrative writing, “children can gradually increase their capacity to write descriptive and complex stories with coherent structure and plots” (Graham, MacArthur, Fitzgerald, 2007, p. 71). As children make progress, they will write a more complex story plot that includes a conflict between characters describing their mental states, increase story cohesion using conjunctions, and present more vivid pictures of a story by skillfully using a literary device such as metaphors, similes, and symbols, etc. Thus, in teaching teachers need to provide developmentally appropriate scaffolding strategies to meet different levels and needs of the students. Otherwise, students might be stuck in a rather simple story plot that is literally a series of actions between characters without depth.
Response to Jaeun Kim
Jaeun suggested one insightful way to teach narrative writing in class, citing Chavis who introduced art as an effective prompt for this type writing. I take using art such as paintings and posters as a prompt of writing really fascinating. “They can understand feelings and motives of other people and implement these feelings in their written narratives” This method can effectively tap into students’ imagination; thus, students can learn narrative writing in a creative and entertaining way. The students will try to read and understand the motives and stories of paintings and express them in their own words.
Sources
Graham, S., MacArthur, Charles A, and Fitzgerald, J. (2007). Best
Practices in Writing Instruction. New-York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Tompkins, Gail E. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and
product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
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