Personal Narratives

Lately, we have been focusing on writing personal narratives, real stories from our lives. We noticed that often times we write about very broad topics, but sometimes the best stories are stories from a small moment. 

We created an anchor chart and talked about the difference between big topics and small memories. We compared them to a watermelon and a seed. Here's what we came up with:

Then students met with partners and looked at their own writing. They helped each other determine whether or not their writing was about a watermelon or a seed. If their story was too broad, they figured out ways they could zoom in on one important memory.