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Personal Experience Narrative
Grade 4 Sample
Summarizing Framework
This is a story about me.
The experience was competing in a basketball game against the Longhorns.
The experience concluded when the game was over and my team lost.
What worked:
This is a focused narrative with all elements of the diamond included:
- Entertaining Beginning: There is a sense of story with a strong entertaining beginning, middle, and end. The writer used action and thoughts/feelings effectively.
- Elaborative Detail: In the second paragraph, the author stops the story action to describe the setting at the gym. “Sweet aroma of popcorn”, “gleaming wooden floors”, “sturdy goal”
- Main Event: The author used action, thoughts/feelings, description of feelings (show don’t tell), and sound effects “Swish!”, “Rrrrrr”.
- Powerful vocabulary “victorious”, “gleaming”, “reflected”, “sturdy”, “swished”, “athletic team”, “orange ball”.
- Extended Ending: There is a successful ending including a decision and a wish.
- The theme “everybody loses sometimes” is evident as the story unfolds.
Feedback with Prescriptive Feedback:
CHOOSE a Focus Skill: One skill that will make the biggest impact
Suspense: There was evidence of suspense in the word “Suddenly,” however, it would improve the writing to add story questions or a magic of three segment to tease the reader.
- Section 4 Lesson 3: Red Flag Words and Phrases
- Section 4 Lesson 4: The Magic of Three
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Personal Experience Narrative - Grade 4 Sample