Personal Narrative

Touchstone Texts for Personal Narratives

A Sweet Smell of Roses by Angela Johnson

A Tree Named Steve by Alan Zweibel and David Catrow

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst

Great Pumpkin Switch by Megan McDonald and Ted Lewin

Ira Sleeps Over by Bernard Waber

My Daddy Makes the Best Motorcycle in the Whole Wide World – The Harley-Davidson by Jean Davidson

Shortcut by Donald Crews

The Greatest Game Ever Played: A Football Story By Phil Bildner

Uncle Peter’s Amazing Chinese Wedding by Lenore Look

Woman Hollering Creek (“Eleven”) by Sandra Cisneros

Other things you might need:

Editing Checklist

Personal Narrative Rubric

Charts you’ll want to create:

How to Use Paragraphs in Narrative Writing
Qualities of Strong Personal Narrative Writing
Strategies for Generating Personal Narrative Writing (i.e., a chart with the teaching points from your first few lessons)
Things We Learn From Studying Touchstone Texts

Peer Conference Rubrics help kids get in the habit of chatting with each other about their writing.
A minilesson on adding internal thinking to stories.
This Reflection Sheet can help students think through the highs and lows of the personal narrative writing process.
An in-depth comment sheet for students to fill out about their peers' writing.

Blog Posts:
Read more about our ups and downs with regard to teaching personal narrative in the classroom.

If you have questions about anything on this page or would like to request something you don't see above, then feel free to:

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This page was last modified on Sunday, October 19, 2008 13:30:02.