Type of mini-lesson:​​ Writing​ ​Personal Narratives 

Grade level: ​4th 

Approximate length of time:​​ 35-45 min 
Utah Common Core: 
● Writing Standard 3: ​Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or 
events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. 
Materials: 
● SmartBoard 
● Doc Cam 
● Lined paper 
Essential Question/s: 
● What is a personal narrative? 
Personal Objectives: 
● Students will be exposed to a new form of writing (personal narrative) and begin to 
write their own. 
Accomodations:  
● Let ​Kaylee​ type her story on her iPad since her writing arm is broken 
● Write student answers on the board so visual learners can see information written 
down 
● Model how to write a personal narrative for students who may need extra support 
__________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Pre-Assessment (10 min):  
1. Ask students if they know what a personal narrative is 
2. Think-Pair-Share 
3. Answer: 
a. A story about yourself 
4. Tell students that “An A From Miss Keller” is an example of a personal narrative 
5. “What did you notice about that personal narrative?” 
6. “What did the author do?” 
7. “What did the author write about?” 
8. Think-Pair-Share 
9. Write answers on the board 
10. Possible answers: 
a. All true 
b. Tell a story 
c. Have dialogue 
d. Good things and bad things that happen 
e. Sensory details: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch 
 f. Internal details: emotions (happy, sad, scared, mad, etc.) 
g. Beginning, middle, end 
h. Zoom in on a small moment, stretch it out with details  
11. Tie student’s answers back to the book: 
a. Patricia wrote about a ​true, personal​ experience she had 
b. Used details to describe people 
i. “She reminded me of a bird of prey perched on a dead limb, ready to 
swoop down on one of us.” 
ii. “Pop, known far and wide for being a master pastry chef, always 
carried cookies in his pocket.” 
c. Story had a beginning, middle, and end 
d. Good and bad things happened in the story 
i. Miss Keller was hard on Patricia 
ii. Pop passed away 
iii. Patricia got an A on her term paper 
e. Story had dialogue  
i. Between Patricia and Pop, Miss Keller and Patricia, etc. 
 
Introduce the lesson (5-10 min): 
1. “Personal narratives can be about easy, happy times or more difficult times. ‘An A 
From Miss Keller’ had hard times and good times, right?” 
2. “We are going to be writing personal narratives today, but before we do that, we 
need to brainstorm some ideas what to write about.” 
3. Tell students that we are going to zoom in on school, and write a personal narrative 
about a school experience (like Patricia Polacco) 
4. Tell students to make a list of memories of school experiences (they can be good, 
bad, funny, hard, happy, etc.) 
5. (Their personal narratives can be about: 
a. Favorite year in school 
b. Hard year in school 
c. Favorite teacher 
d. A teacher they had a hard time with 
e. Favorite subject 
f. Least favorite subject 
g. A fun lesson they were taught 
h. A fun day in school 
i. Best friend at school) 
6. Give students 1-2 minutes to write their ideas down.  
 7. (Write ideas of your own down so you can model how to write a personal 
narrative.) 
8. Have them star or circle the one that would make the best personal narrative. 
 
Discuss the process/Apply the process (5-10 min): 
1. “Let’s see, I’ve got a big list here, but a story I think that the world needs to hear 
is…”  
2. Tell students a story from when you were in school. 
3. Model how to write a personal narrative by using the doc cam to write a few 
sentences (3-4). 
4. Encourage students to make their writing unique and detailed by using adjectives, 
metaphors, 5 senses, emotion, etc. 
5. Model how to add details in your writing. 
 
Independent writing/Conferencing (10-15 min): 
1. Tell students that they are now going to write their own personal narrative. 
2. Remind them that writing is thoughtful and quiet. 
3. Spelling doesn’t need to be perfect, just do their best. 
4. Reinforce the idea that students should make their writing unique and their own. 
5. “The world needs to hear these stories!” 
6. Release students to write their own narratives; give them 10-15 minutes 
7. Success criteria: students participate in the independents writing  
 
Share (5 min): 
1. Bring students back together to share what they wrote 
2. Start with think-pair-share 
a. Can share the whole thing or a few sentences. 
3. Bring whole class back together and ask for volunteers to share