Fourth grade

Narrative writing unit

Day 1: What makes a story?
Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students will draw on prior knowledge and a narrative

mentor text to determine what makes a story. Students will watch a Flocabulary video
entitled Five Elements of a Story and create their own anchor charts to help solidify this

knowledge, showing what they know at the end of this lesson by identifying five key

elements of narrative pieces on an “Exit Ticket”.

Time: 60 minutes

Resources or Materials Needed

• Narrative Mentor Text: The Raft by Jim LaMarche

• Chart Paper

• Markers

• Student Writing Notebooks

• “Elements of a Story?” Worksheets

• Glue

• Pencils

• ELMO

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• SMART Board

• Access to Flocabulary video: Five Elements of a Story

• Chromebooks with Internet Access (for “Exit Ticket”)

Performance Objective: Given an “Exit Ticket” submitted via an online survey platform,

students will identify five key elements of narrative works with 80% accuracy.

Step 1: Pre-Instructional Activities

• Students will engage in a “Quiet 10”, during which time, students are to silently write for

ten minutes without stopping.

• Students are given the prompt, “Once upon a time...” and asked to use their ten minutes

of silent writing to write an imaginary story.

Step 2: Content Presentation

• Students will join teacher at carpet area

• Teacher will ask students what makes a good story?

• Teacher will accept answers from 4-5 students

• Teacher will read narrative mentor text aloud to students, asking them to pay close

attention to what makes this story a good story

• Students will turn to shoulder partners and engage in discussion on what elements of this

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story MAKES it a good story

• Teacher will ask students if the elements of this story exist in other stories?

• Teacher will create an anchor chart entitled, “What is a Story?”, accepting answers from

students and including them in the anchor chart (making sure to guide the responses in

order to put the most pertinent information on the anchor chart).

• Teacher will dismiss students back to seats

Step 3: Learner Participation

• At seats, students will be asked to take out writing notebooks.

• Teacher projects Flocabulary video entitled, “Five Elements of a Story”.

• Students are given half-page worksheets to glue into notebooks, entitled “Elements of a

Story”.

• Students are asked to make their OWN “mini anchor chart” on the most important

components of a story.

• Teacher will project worksheet onto SMART Board, writing the following prompts for

students to answer:

• Definition of “Story” (in your own words)

• What are the five elements of a story?

• Are there any other important features of a story?

• How should a story make you feel?

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• Students are given time to answer questions independently, and share at their table

groups.

Step 4: Assessment

• Exit Ticket: Students are asked to put away Writing Notebooks and to take out their

Chromebooks to complete an online Survey Monkey exit ticket which assesses student
understanding of the 5 of the most important components of writing their own story.

Teacher provides the following weblink for students to access and prompts students to fill

in responses. Teacher will monitor responses as they are submitted in real time and use

responses as a formative assessment to guide instruction.

Step 5: Follow-Through Activities

• Students are asked to pay close attention tonight during their 20 minutes of assigned

nightly reading to elements of the chapter that either improve or take-away from the

overall story. Does the author of the book they are reading use the key elements of story

writing?

Printable RESOURCES

• Five Elements of a Story “Mini Anchor Chart” Worksheet (page 5)

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