Personal Experience Narrative Sample- Grade 4

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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  

Recommended Resources

• Empowering Writer's Methodology
• Narrative Writing Guide for Grade 4