How to Teach Narratives Using Anchor Charts and Mentor Texts

Teaching students how to identify and write personal narratives is something we all do each year. Anchor charts are an effective way to help students learn about this genre. It is easy to incorporate both reading and writing during workshop time. Everything that you need to teach this literacy unit is provided for you. This includes the lessons, mentor texts, anchor charts, student recording sheets, graphic organizers, and independent practice. Let's take a look at reading workshop. Although there are 10 genres available for each grade level, we will be focusing on personal narratives. There are enough lessons to help you successfully teach this unit for an entire month.

How to Begin Teaching Personal Narratives

Whether you are teaching personal narrative or another genre, the format for reading and writing workshop remains the same. All of the lessons follow the format above. Start with an introduction. The next step is to model what you are teaching for the class. You can do this by using the mentor texts that are provided for you in the unit.

Then, invite the students to help you as they are thinking out loud while adding their thoughts to the anchor chart. Next, engage all learners as you have them turn and talk and find more examples to add to the anchor chart. You can have them continue using the mentor text. Finally, the students will be transitioned into independent time. Students will apply the skills that they have just learned by using their own books during independent reading time.

Using Anchor Charts

Anchor charts are a great way to model and display the information you are teaching. Start by writing the mini-lesson objective at the top. You can prepare this step and the categories in advance.

Choose a mentor text. This can either be from one of your own books, or from a mentor text that is provided for you. Read the story to the students. Model for the information from the text that matches the mini-lesson. Record this information on the anchor chart. Next, have volunteers point out other information from the story and record their responses on the anchor chart. Finally, have students work together by using a turn and talk. Using collaboration helps to build confidence with students. Record additional information on the anchor chart.

After students have mastered the mini-lesson, send them off to work on their own. Graphic organizers are provided for students to record the examples that they find from their own personal book boxes. The writing workshop lessons build upon the same mini-lesson taught during reading so that students can apply their learning in their writing.

What's Included in the Personal Narratives Unit?

• 20 reading and 20 writing mini lessons all linked to the Common Core and TEKS standards!
• Students note-taking pages for all 40 lessons. Perfect to glue into reading and writing notebooks and keep the learning going all year long.
• 20 printable graphic organizers designed specifically for each reading lesson.
• 20 printable think mark graphic organizers for each reading lesson.
• Writing rubrics for grading.
• Writing editing and revising checklists.
• Sample completed anchor charts for several lessons.
• Mentor texts are INCLUDED! 7 2-page original mentor texts with custom illustrations are included to support the reading and writing lessons.
• TONS of teacher pages for organizing, conferencing, assessing, and note-taking.

Looking for Other Genres?

• Biography
• Fantasy
• Historical Fiction
• Informational
• Launching
• Opinion
• Personal Narrative
• Poetry
• Realistic Fiction
• Traditional Literature

The above lessons are from the 3rd Grade Literacy Units. To see units for other grade levels, click the links below:

• 2nd Grade Literacy Units
• 3rd Grade Literacy Units
• 4th Grade Literacy Units
• 5th Grade Literacy Units
• 6th Grade Literacy Units

Refer to this blog post on how to set up reading notebooks. 3 Steps to Creating the Best Reading Notebooks