Write a Narrative: Plan Character and Setting | EL Education Curriculum

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ELA 2019 G7:M1:U3:L5

Write a Narrative: Plan Character and Setting

In this Lesson

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Focus Standards: These are the standards the instruction addresses.

  • W.7.3a, W.7.5

Supporting Standards: These are the standards that are incidental—no direct instruction in this lesson, but practice of these standards occurs as a result of addressing the focus standards.

  • RL.7.10, W.7.4, W.7.10, L.7.6
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Daily Learning Targets

  • I can create a character profile for my narrative. (W.7.3a, W.7.5)
  • I can create accurate settings based on the places I have read about. (W.7.3a, W.7.5)

Ongoing Assessment

  • Opening A: Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 5 (W.7.3a)
  • Work Time C: Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizer (W.7.3a, W.7.4, W.7.5)

Agenda

AgendaTeaching Notes

1. Opening

A. Engage the Learner - W.7.3a (5 minutes)

2. Work Time

A. Read A Long Walk to Water, "Message from Salva" and Author's Note - W.7.5 (15 minutes)

B. Introduce Work to Contribute to a Better World - S.L.7.1 (5 minutes)

C. Plan Character and Setting - W.7.3a (15 minutes)

3. Closing and Assessment

A. Pair Share - W.7.5 (5 minutes)

4. Homework

A. Independent Research Reading: Students read for at least 20 minutes in their independent research reading text. Then they select a prompt and write a response in their independent reading journal.

B. Create Illustrations: In art class or at home, students follow the instructions on Homework: Create Illustrations to continue creating illustrations for their narrative children's ebook.

C. Brainstorm a Plot: Students think of a plot for their stories, which they will develop in the next lesson.

Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

  • Repeated routines occur in the following:
    • W.7.3a – Opening A: In the entrance ticket activity, students review the importance of creating accurate settings for their narratives.
    • Opening A: Reviewing learning targets
  • New skills are introduced in the following:
    • Work Time A: Students read the author’s note of the text for evidence of habits of character, in preparation for planning their own writing.
    • Work Time B: Students participate in collaborative discussions to co-create the Work to Contribute to a Better World anchor chart.
    • W.7.3a – Work Time C: Students use the model narrative to plan the character and setting(s) of their own narratives about a Lost Child of Sudan.
    • W.7.5 – Closing and Assessment A: Students share their plans with a partner to develop and strengthen their writing with peer support.
  • The Think-Pair-Share protocol is used in this lesson. Protocols are an important feature of our curriculum because they are one of the best ways we know to engage students in discussion, inquiry, critical thinking, and sophisticated communication. A protocol consists of agreed-upon, detailed guidelines for reading, recording, discussing, or reporting that ensure equal participation and accountability in learning.
  • In this lesson, students focus on working to contribute to a better world, using their strengths when working with a partner to give and receive feedback on their plans.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

  • Encourage those students demonstrating ease with creating characters and settings to provide more details about their characters and begin to think about which events will take place in their settings. 

How It Builds on Previous Work

  • In the previous lesson, students analyzed the model narrative. They draw on this analysis to plan their character and setting in this lesson.

Support All Students

  • At this point, students should be reading the text independently. However, if some or all students need more support, read several pages aloud and then release students to read independently, in pairs, or in small groups.
  • Provide extra modeling and guidance for those students struggling to fill out the Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizer. Students may also benefit from more examples for each of the boxes. For example, get students to think about their own characters by asking what is unique about Nasreen. Students might respond that she does not speak for a long time. ▲
  • Continue to monitor students to determine if there are issues surfacing as a result of the content of this lesson that need to be discussed as a whole group, in smaller groups, or individually.
  • Note there is differentiated version of the Narrative Writing Checklist used in Closing and Assessment in the supporting materials download. ▲

Assessment Guidance

  • In Work Time C, monitor student responses in the Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizer to ensure students have developed a character and setting.

Down the Road

  • In the next lesson, students will continue to plan their narratives, focusing on plot. Remember to make arrangements for students to read their ebooks to a real third-grade audience.

In Advance

  • Ensure there is a copy of Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 5 at each student's workspace.
  • Review the Narrative Writing checklist.
  • Post the learning targets and applicable anchor charts (see Materials list).

Tech and Multimedia

  • Work Time C: Ebook Nasreen's Secret School and projector to display it

Supporting English Language Learners

Supports guided in part by CA ELD Standards 7.I.C.10, 7.II.C.6, and 7.II.C.7.

Important Points in the Lesson Itself

  • To support ELLs, this lesson provides students with the opportunity to plan the character and setting for their narrative, using a graphic organizer. Using graphic organizers to preplan writing gives ELLs a chance to deliberately generate conceptual language related to a writing task prior to doing the task itself. This pre-rehearsed conceptual language then becomes an anchor of sorts for ELLs' writing, allowing them to focus more fully on the sometimes labor-intensive task of selecting concrete, specific language as they write.
  • ELLs may find filling out the Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizer challenging because they may not know words that they can apply to each of the categories designated in the graphic organizer. Therefore, additional supports such as the ones below may be useful when introducing the Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizer.

Vocabulary

  • profile (A)
  • character, setting (DS)

Key

(A): Academic Vocabulary

(DS): Domain-Specific Vocabulary

Materials from Previous Lessons

Teacher

Student

  • Close Readers Do These Things anchor chart (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 4, Opening A)
  • Academic word wall (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 1, Opening A)
  • Domain-specific word wall (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 1, Work Time B)
  • Text Guide: A Long Walk to Water (for teacher reference) (from Unit 1, Lesson 2, Work Time A)
  • Work to Become Ethical People anchor chart (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 2, Opening B)
  • Questions about A Long Walk to Water anchor chart (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 2, Work Time A)
  • Nasreen's Secret School (ebook to display and read aloud) (from Unit 3, Lesson 4, Work Time B)
  • Device with which to display the ebook
  • Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizer (example for teacher reference) (from Unit 3, Lesson 4, Work Time B)

  • Vocabulary log (one per student; from Unit 1, Lesson 2, Opening A)
  • A Long Walk to Water (text; one per student; from Unit 1, Lesson 1, Work Time C)
  • Notes and articles from independent research reading and other nonfiction texts from this module (begun in Unit 1)
  • Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizer (one per student and one for display; from Unit 3, Lesson 4, Work Time B)
  • Narrative Writing checklist (one per student and one for display; from Unit 3, Lesson 4, Closing and Assessment A)
  • Narrative Writing checklist ▲ 
  • Homework: Create Illustrations (one per student; from Unit 3, Lesson 4, Homework A)

New Materials

Teacher

Student

  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 5 (answers for teacher reference)
  • Chart paper
  • Work to Contribute to a Better World anchor chart (example for teacher reference)
  • Work to Contribute to a Better World anchor chart (one for display; co-created in Work Time B)
  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 5 (one per student)
  • Online or print dictionaries (including ELL and home language dictionaries; one per small groups of students)
  • Synopsis: A Long Walk to Water, Ending Sections (one per student)
  • Sticky notes (one of each gist color per student)

 

Assessment

Each unit in the 6-8 Language Arts Curriculum has two standards-based assessments built in, one mid-unit assessment and one end of unit assessment. The module concludes with a performance task at the end of Unit 3 to synthesize students' understanding of what they accomplished through supported, standards-based writing.

Opening

OpeningLevels of Support

A. Engage the Learner - W.7.3a (5 minutes)

  • Repeated routine: students respond to questions on Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 5. Students will review their responses to the entrance ticket in Work Time C.
  • Repeated routine: follow the same routine as with the previous lessons to review learning targets and the purpose of the lesson, reminding students if the learning targets are similar or the same as in previous lessons.
  • With students, use the vocabulary strategies on the Close Readers Do These Things anchor chart to deconstruct the words character (a person in a fictional story), profile (an analysis of the characteristics of a person), and setting (the surroundings where a story takes place) in the learning target. Record on the academic word wall and the domain-specific word wall, with translations in students' home languages, where appropriate, and invite students to record words in their vocabulary logs.

For Lighter Support

  • Review the meaning of the term accurate setting before asking the question about the learning target. ELLs may be unfamiliar with the word accurate and will be better able to answer the question if they understand what is meant by an accurate setting.

For Heavier Support

  • Supply sentence starters to help students answer the question about accurate settings.
    • It is important to create accurate settings for this narrative because . . .
    • All narratives . . .

Work Time

Work TimeLevels of Support

A. Read A Long Walk to Water, "Message from Salva" and Author's Note - W.7.5 (15 minutes)

  • Repeated routine: follow the same process as in previous lessons for students to read "A Message from Salva" of A Long Walk to Water, using the Text Guide: A Long Walk to Water as necessary. If students do not finish reading "Salva's Message" and "Author's Note" within the allotted time, use the Synopsis: A Long Walk to Water, Ending Sections document to review the key details from these sections. Then have students identify the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary, reflect on their reading as they choose, and record the gist on sticky notes using the following resources as appropriate: vocabulary logs, Work to Become Ethical People anchor chart, and Questions about A Long Walk to Water anchor chart.
  • After reading, invite students to reflect on the following questions by thinking, writing, or drawing. Students must be silent when they do this:

"What did you learn from reading this message?" (Responses will vary.)

"What habits of character does Salva identify as helping him achieve his goals? How can you apply this to your own writing?" (Responses will vary.)

  • Invite students to turn to page 118 and independently read the author's note.
  • Ask students to Think-Pair-Share:

"What did you learn from reading this note that can help you as you plan your own narratives?" (We learned that Salva's events were based on what he told the author and that the author researched about the Lost Boys. It was interesting to learn that Linda Sue Park also read books and articles and watched videos about the Lost Boys of Sudan, just like we did.)

"How will writing and sharing your own narratives further help Salva in his mission to help others?" (By sharing it with more people, we can spread the message about what Salva is doing.)

"How does this note help you think about the purpose and task of your own narratives?" (Responses will vary but may include: The purpose of my narrative is to tell others about the Lost Children of Sudan so people can help them.)

For Lighter Support

  • In Work Time A, in order to provide opportunities for ELLs to extend and develop their spoken English, use Conversation Cues to encourage the generation of more complex questions. Two Conversation Cues that work well to support the elaboration of questions are:
    • Can you say more about that?
    • Why do you think that?

B. Introduce Work to Contribute to a Better World - S.L.7.1 (5 minutes)

  • Focus students on the Work to Contribute to a Better World anchor chart. Explain that, as it says at the top of the chart, students learn to improve their communities.
  • Read aloud the habit of character recorded:

"I apply my learning to help our school, the community, and the environment. This means I create products like posters, leaflets, or videos for the school or community or put together presentations for the school or the community or organize an event to benefit the school, the community, or the environment."

  • Invite students to Turn and Talk to an elbow partner:

"Using the anchor chart as a guide, what does this habit of character mean in your own words?" (helping others in our school or community or helping protect the environment)

  • Ask students to Think-Pair-Share:

"What does this habit look like? What might you see when someone is showing this habit?" See Work to Contribute to a Better World anchor chart (example for teacher reference).

"What does this habit sound like? What might you hear when someone is showing this habit?" See Work to Contribute to a Better World anchor chart (example for teacher reference).

"How do you think writing a narrative children's ebook about a Lost Boy or Girl of Sudan helps you work on this habit?" (Possible response: Writing an ebook for children teaches them about the Lost Children and helps spread Salva's message about the needs of the Sudanese people.)
  • N/A

C. Plan Character and Setting – W.7.3a (15 minutes) 

  • Review the appropriate learning targets relevant to the work to be completed in this section of the lesson:

“I can create a character profile for my narrative.”

“I can create accurate settings based on the places I have read about.”

  • Tell students they will now plan a character and the setting for their narratives. Tell students that although the characters are fictional, their backgrounds and journeys should be based on what they’ve learned from Salva’s journey in A Long Walk to Water as well as the informational texts they’ve read about the Lost Children of Sudan throughout this module. The settings they create should also be based on the real settings in A Long Walk to Water and the informational texts. Explain to students that though it will vary for each student, they will likely have multiple settings, such as the desert and a refugee camp, as they tell the story of the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan. At this point, students can Turn and Talk to share their responses to the entrance ticket activity.
  • Ask students to Think-Pair-Share about the ways they can base a character on information from sources but not copy the character or person completely. ▲ (We can use parts of the character’s background or where they live. We can use events that happened but change them slightly to make them unique to our story.)
  • Ask students to Think-Pair-Share:

“How can you discover Sudanese names you can use in your narratives?” (We can use a search engine with keywords such as common Sudanese names.)

  • Ask students to retrieve their Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizers and their other graphic organizers, notes, and articles from independent research reading and other nonfiction texts they’ve read in this module so far. Inform students that they will now begin using that information to build characters and setting. Ask students to note which sources they use for their characters in the appropriate box.
  • Invite students to form pairs, and guide them through filling out the first box in Part II of the Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizer together. Display Nasreen’s Secret School, and model completing Part II of the graphic organizer as if you were planning to write this ebook. Invite students to help you complete the boxes with information from Nasreen’s Secret School.
  • Give students time to look through their sources and notes to find information that can help them in describing the character, but remind them that they can also use their imaginations to come up with character traits. Remind students of the habits of character they discussed for Nasreen in the previous lesson and Salva in the previous activity. If necessary, record student responses on chart paper for students to consult in upcoming planning lessons.
  • As students work together to complete their graphic organizers, walk around the room to guide them in filling out the different areas.
  • Repeated routine: invite students to reflect on their progress toward the relevant learning targets.

For Heavier Support

  • In Work Time C, when students fill out the Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizer, create word and/or image banks for each of the sections of the organizer:
    • Description (list of words to describe characters, with or without illustrations)
    • Habits of character (list of words to describe habits of character, with or without illustrations)
    • Characters’ backgrounds (similar lists to those above)
    • Description of setting (similar lists to those above)
  • These word and image banks—which can be posted on the wall or given out as handouts—support ELLs by providing them with access to the language they need to complete the task of doing the graphic organizer and envisioning their character and setting.

Closing & Assessments

Closing

A. Pair Share – W.7.5 (5 minutes)

  • Display and focus students on their Narrative Writing checklist and the Narrative Writing checklist ▲ as necessary for students who need extra support. The differentiated checklist supports students’ self-assessment with simplified language. ▲
  • Focus students on the criterion:
    • W.7.9: I effectively use information from sources to craft the characters, setting, or events in the narrative.
  • Invite students to mark or highlight this criterion, and invite students to provide feedback to their partner based on this criterion. Explain to students that as they review their peers’ work, they should be looking for examples where they used information from the sources to create their characters and settings and also making suggestions about where their peers could use more information from the sources in planning.
  • Circulate to support students as they work together to give feedback to one another. Emphasize that students should record their peer’s suggestions on their graphic organizer to incorporate when they draft their narratives.
  • Invite students to reflect on the habits of character focus in this lesson, discussing what went well and what could be improved next time.

Homework

Homework

A. Independent Research Reading

  • Students read for at least 20 minutes in their independent research reading text. Then they select a prompt and write a response in their independent reading journal.

B. Create Illustrations

  • In art class or at home, students follow the instructions on Homework: Create Illustrations to continue creating illustrations for their narrative children's ebook.

C. Brainstorm a Plot

  • Students think of a plot for their stories, which they will develop in the next lesson.

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