Rethinking Narrative Writing: A Better Way to Teach Students to Write

Okay, let’s be honest. How many times have you assigned a narrative writing prompt, like, “Tell me about your summer vacation,” or “Write about a time you were brave,” and you just get a classroom full of students staring blankly at their papers? Or you have that student who says, “I can’t remember a time I was brave,” or “I’ve never gone on a summer vacation.”

Now, it’s not that students don’t have personal experiences to write about, but recalling enough details to write a full, well-structured personal narrative is really challenging. And if students struggle to recall details, their writing is going to become vague, underdeveloped, and ultimately, it’s going to be frustrating for both them and you as their teacher.

So in today’s episode, we’re going to rethink narrative writing and why it might be time to shift our approach. We’re going to talk about why personal narrative writing is so hard for students, why expository writing might need to take a bigger role in your writing instruction, and then I’ve got some ideas for how narrative writing can be content-rich and not just personal. So if you’re ready to rethink your writing instruction, let’s go ahead and get started.

I want to start by talking about why personal narrative writing is so hard for students, which, if I’m being honest, is a bit of a recent aha moment for me. When I was a fourth-grade classroom teacher, 50% of our writing time was spent writing personal narratives. I used to think that it was a really effective way to help our students learn how to write, and I always assumed that writing a personal narrative—which is a story about their own life—would be the easiest type of writing for students, because they just had to write about their own personal experiences.

Writing personal narratives is actually a really cognitively demanding task for students, and it’s difficult for a few reasons. First of all, students have to recall a very specific event, which means they need to really remember the details—what did they see, what did they hear, what did they smell, what dialogue was happening around them. They need to remember the emotions, they need to remember the sequence of events, and they have to recall it all at once and pretty quickly. If you think about it, that’s a lot to remember. And many students actually struggle with memory recall, which, if we think about it, shouldn’t be too surprising. I don’t know about you, but I can barely remember what I wore or ate last Monday, let alone what happened on my vacation to the beach two years ago. And the same is true for our students—they have a hard time recalling some of these very specific details that would make their writing so much stronger.

I think another reason why personal narratives are challenging for students is that many students haven’t had enough structured practice in storytelling. So it’s actually really difficult for them to develop a strong personal narrative—even if they can remember the details. They don’t have a lot of practice with storytelling.

So even though we have our students writing personal narratives since kindergarten, we don’t necessarily spend a lot of time talking about the art of how to craft an engaging, interesting, and well-written story. Sure, students know to put the events in order, to sequence them, to include some transition words and some dialogue. But storytelling is much more than that, and it’s often an underdeveloped skill—and it ultimately shows in our students’ writing. So storytelling, in itself, is a challenging skill to master, and that’s exactly what we’re asking them to do when they write a personal narrative.

I think another big point that we often overlook is that writing about highly personal experiences can be really frustrating or even discouraging for students if they don’t feel like they have something interesting to say. And I definitely remember seeing this in my students. I would give my students a personal narrative prompt, and I would have students say, “Well, that never happened to me,” or “I’ve never experienced that before.” And it’s like, okay, well, how are they supposed to complete the assignment if they don’t feel like they have an experience that’s worth sharing?

For example, let’s say that a student is asked to write about a time they were brave. And again, if I’m being honest, I’m pretty sure that this is a prompt I gave my students when I was teaching writing. And I, as an adult, would probably have a hard time coming up with a really engaging, well-developed story in response to this prompt. Your students would probably struggle with this because they can’t think of a dramatic or exciting moment that fits the prompt. And so instead, because this is a writing assignment that they have to complete, you’re probably going to get a short, underdeveloped paragraph. You might see something along the lines of: “This one time I was brave when I went on a roller coaster. It was scary at first, but then I liked it.”

I remember seeing writing very similar to this when it came to personal narratives. It was short, there were not a lot of details, it lacked any sort of emotional connection, and the lack of depth makes these personal narrative assignments less effective when it comes to writing skills. The whole reason why we’re assigning any written prompt is because we want our students to become stronger writers. But if students don’t feel confident in the story they are writing, it’s really going to be hard for them to focus on improving their writing skills and actually mastering the writing strategies that you are teaching them.

So this is what I want you to consider: instead of asking students to pull from a memory when it comes to writing, what if we gave them knowledge to write about instead?

Which leads me into my next point, where I think it’s time that we consider that expository writing might actually be a more effective way to help our students grow as writers. And just so we’re on the same page here, expository writing simply means writing that informs, explains, or describes. It’s a pretty big category.

Now, when I say that expository writing might actually be more effective than narrative writing, I need to give a little bit of a disclaimer. We want to focus on expository writing that is connected to content or knowledge that our students are acquiring—so, expository writing based on what students are reading or learning about in science or social studies.

Because here’s the thing: when I taught fourth grade, I did plenty of expository writing, but it was always disjointed and never connected to any content that we were teaching. My students wrote expository pieces like, “Explain what animal you think would make the best pet,” or “Which season is your favorite? Explain why.” And while both of these are expository prompts, they again rely on students’ own personal memories or personal banks of knowledge in order for them to be successful with the writing task.

What if students have never had a pet before? It’s going to be hard for them to think about what animal would make the best pet. Or, you know, if students live in a state like Florida where it’s perma-summer, they’re going to have a hard time really distinguishing between any of the seasons. And if they don’t like summer, they might have a hard time writing about that prompt.

Just like we talked about—if students don’t personally feel like they have enough knowledge or information on the prompt—then they can get easily frustrated with the writing process, and they can shut down during writing, which, again, is going to make it difficult for them to become skilled writers.

So what if we could ensure that students had enough knowledge to be successful with the writing assignments we give them? That’s where content-based expository writing comes in. So again, rather than having writing be its own separate entity—its own separate subject, disconnected from anything else we’re teaching—let’s try to connect writing to what we are reading about.

For example, let’s say that your students are learning about life cycles in science. And because you know how important knowledge-building is during your reading block, you’re also going to make life cycles the focus of your literacy block for a few weeks. So you’ve read picture books on the life cycles of various animals. You’ve read nonfiction texts and studied the text features. You’ve looked at diagrams. You’ve introduced a variety of key words. Ultimately, your students have a lot of knowledge around life cycles. They understand life cycles at a much deeper level because it’s been the focus of your instruction for the last two weeks.

Now, during writing, you’re going to have your students explain the life cycle of a chicken, which is an animal that you’ve read about. How do you think your students would do with that writing task? My guess is that they would probably be so much more successful writing about this topic rather than writing about a time they felt brave.

I think that because—and actually, research also shows—that this is a more effective way to teach writing. Ultimately, this writing prompt is going to feel easier for students for a few reasons. First of all, you just gave them all the knowledge they needed to be successful with the writing prompt. It’s like you gave them the answer.

Here’s the other thing to keep in mind—so not only did you give them all the knowledge, but you can level the playing field before they begin writing. Let’s review the key vocabulary words. Let’s review the key ideas around life cycles. Let’s take a look at a diagram related to the life cycle. The idea is, we’re not quizzing students on their knowledge of life cycles through this writing assignment. We simply want them to write a successful paragraph that explains the life cycle of a chicken. And so we can give them all the knowledge they need to be successful with the writing prompt.

Also, because you’re doing this at the end or toward the end of your unit, the knowledge is fresh and it’s top of mind. So they aren’t having to dig way back into their memories to come up with details about what the weather was like or what their mom told them when they were on vacation. The knowledge is fresh, and it’s top of mind.

But another reason why I think content-driven expository writing is so beneficial for students—and is something they can be successful at—is the fact that it’s not personal. No one is going to be evaluating the topic of their text or judging their own personal experience. So it’s going to be a whole lot easier for students to focus on the writing and to even maybe take some writing risks because they have no personal connection to the topic.

Ultimately, when students write about knowledge and the content they are learning, it really does make it easier for them to focus their time and energy on the actual writing skills and the writing strategies that we want them to improve and practice, rather than focusing all their mental energy on recalling details.

I think the other thing to keep in mind is that while students are all writing about the same topic—because so often there’s this idea of, well, we want students to express themselves, and we want there to be choice, and with personal narratives, all of their stories are going to be different—the reality is, even if you ask your students to explain the life cycle of a chicken, their writing isn’t going to be the same. Their word choice will be different. The details they choose to include, their sentence structure—it’s all going to be different. So students still get to express themselves as writers. You’re just setting them up for success because you’re giving them the knowledge they need to be successful with the prompt.

So I want you to consider: could shifting the focus toward more content-driven expository writing reduce student frustration and improve writing quality in your classroom? And I hope as you think about that, you’re recognizing that, yeah, making this shift could really make a huge difference.

Okay, so I want to jump back quickly to this idea of narrative writing, because I can already anticipate that so many teachers are going to say something like, okay, I can see your point. I can recognize that expository writing about the content we’re teaching makes sense. But what about my state standards? Teaching narrative writing is a part of my state standards.

And I get that. I agree, right? We read the standards all the time. The fourth-grade Common Core standard for writing says: write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective techniques, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. Make sure you orient the reader by establishing a situation, introducing a narrator, using dialogue, using a variety of transitional words, concrete words and phrases, provide a conclusion, yada yada yada—right? All of those things.

But here’s the thing: the standard does not say that it has to be a personal narrative or that the writing has to be about a student’s own personal experience. It says write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences. So let’s make it easy for our students—especially when they’re first learning to write. Let’s make it about real experiences or events.

We assume that all narrative writing has to be personal narrative writing, because I feel like that’s what a lot of the writing curriculum has teachers do—teach students how to write personal narratives. But really, narrative writing can be so much more than personal stories.

Narrative writing—or the narrative structure—can also be used to write summaries. You can write the sequence of events from a novel or any story that you’ve read. The narrative structure can also be used to write biographies, telling the story of a historical figure’s life in a structured, narrative way. And you could also have your students use the narrative structure to write historical fiction—so they’re using facts and knowledge about a real event to create a story about a historical time period.

In The Writing Revolution, they define narrative writing in a way that I really like. They say that narrative writing relates to a process, a biography, or an event in chronological or sequential order, and is usually organized with transition words that signal time or sequence. In general, narratives are written in either the first person as a participant or in the third person as an observer.

So I want us to think about: couldn’t we fulfill our duty and requirement to help students learn the structure of narrative writing without having them write so many personal narratives?

Like I said, when I was in the classroom, probably about 50% of our writing was focused on personal narratives. And I often think about—what if I had changed my approach to narrative writing? What if I had put more emphasis on expository writing about the content we were teaching? I think both of those things would have made a much bigger difference in my students’ ability to improve their writing skills overall.

So when we’re thinking about this idea of expanding our definition of narrative writing, some practical things that you could do are have students use narrative writing techniques so they can still tell stories in sequential order, they can still include things like dialogue and transition words, but we want to do it through the lens of a content-rich writing task.

For example, maybe after you’ve studied and learned about Harriet Tubman, students would write a short narrative biography about one of her rescue missions. And while they’re writing the biography, they’re going to practice storytelling skills while working with actual facts and details. So they already have the knowledge—they don’t have to recall it from their own personal memories. The knowledge is given to them through the reading experiences, but they get to practice establishing a setting for the story. They get to practice telling events in order. They get to practice using transition words. They can even practice incorporating some dialogue. All of the things that we want our students to be able to do with narrative writing can happen through having them either summarize a text or write a biography.

And here’s the other thing that I haven’t mentioned yet—writing about reading has a huge impact on students’ reading comprehension. It’s a win-win. Ultimately, writing about what students are reading is going to make your writing lessons so much more meaningful, but also, students are going to get a boost in their reading comprehension.

I did a whole podcast episode—I think it was episode number 222—where I talked about the benefits of writing about reading. And just think how powerful it would be if you connected your entire writing instruction to what students were learning about during your reading lessons.

Ultimately, I hope that this episode is getting your wheels turning on how you might want to rethink the role that personal narratives play in your writing instruction. But let me throw out a word of caution and warning if you are going to take a more content-based approach to your writing instruction—which I totally think you should consider. And maybe, obviously, you know, we’re coming up towards the end of this year, so maybe this is something that you really think about and plan for next year. But I definitely think considering this idea of, “Let me have my students write about what we’re learning,” as opposed to writing about something completely disconnected, is worth it.

Ultimately, you need to make sure that your students have enough knowledge to be successful with the writing tasks. So we can’t ask students to write about Harriet Tubman and expect it to be easy for them if we’ve just spent 15 minutes reading one short article with a general overview of Harriet Tubman. That’s not going to be enough. One reading experience is not going to provide the necessary knowledge for students to be able to write an in-depth narrative, if that’s the assignment.

If we are going to have a content-rich writing block, then we need to make sure that we are really providing our students with the knowledge needed to be successful with the writing tasks we assign. And ultimately, if we are able to teach with thematic units and related text sets, then it’s going to give you a win—both for reading comprehension and for writing success.

If this episode has really piqued your interest when it comes to how to effectively teach writing, and it’s something that you’re wanting to maybe reconsider and change up your approach next year, then get excited—because this summer, we’re going to be hosting our annual Stellar Teacher Summer Book Study, and our book this year is The Writing Revolution 2.0.

Now, we have not opened up registration yet, but because you guys are our podcast audience, you get a little bit of a head start here. So if you know for sure that you want to join our free book study—it’s going to take place basically during the entire month of June. We have a Facebook community where our discussion happens, and it’s a lot of fun. We look forward to this every year.

You can go ahead and order your book now and get a jump start on some of the reading, so that way it’ll be easier for you this summer. And we are going to be sharing the link to sign up for the book study sometime in early May. So in the next couple of weeks, we will be sharing the link. We’ll make sure we mention it on the podcast as well, so you can sign up. But you can go ahead and get a head start, like I said, by ordering your book and maybe doing a little bit of reading before summer even gets here.

So just to recap some of the key points I covered today:

Ultimately, we need to remember that personal narratives are tough for students. Writing about our personal experiences is challenging because it requires memory recall, and we also have to think about the writing structure at the same time. It’s just very cognitively demanding for students.

We also want to keep in mind that expository writing can really help students become stronger writers, because they’re working with knowledge rather than struggling to generate their own personal ideas and experiences.

We also want to remember that narrative writing can be redefined. It does not have to be personal. There are a lot of ways that you can teach the narrative writing standard without having your students write personal narratives—summaries, biographies, historical narratives. All of these allow our students to use storytelling skills and practice those narrative writing skills, but in a much more structured way.

I hope this episode really has you considering how you can make some shifts in your writing instruction to set your students up for more writing success. And of course, as always, thank you for tuning in.

If you found this episode helpful, I would love it if you would share it with a colleague or a teacher friend. Word-of-mouth recommendations are one of the best ways to help grow our podcast community, so that way we can continue bringing you helpful literacy content and ultimately support even more educators.

Thank you for tuning in, and I will see you back here next Monday.