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A complete 2–3 week personal narrative writing experience for secondary ELA 🔥
 
This Narrative Writing Bundle brings together three high-impact writing resources (PLUS a fun bonus!) to help students craft authentic, meaningful personal narratives, without formulaic prompts or burnout.
 
This bundle centers student voice, identity, and reflection while explicitly teaching the narrative writing skills students need to grow. From belief-based storytelling to purposeful dialogue integration to a fully scaffolded personal narrative essay, students move step-by-step from idea generation to a polished draft that actually sounds like them.
 
What’s Included:
📝 This I Believe Mini-Unit (also available individually here)
A powerful narrative writing journey centered on beliefs, values, and identity.
Students build toward a short, personal essay through:
– A name reflection warm-up
– A poetry writing task inspired by Rudy Francisco’s “Honest Poem”
– A personal values inventory
– Mentor text analysis + ranking activity
– Guided brainstorming and drafting
 
✍️ Full Personal Narrative Writing Unit (2–3 Weeks)
A comprehensive, fully scaffolded personal narrative essay experience that guides students from idea generation to a complete 5+ paragraph draft.
Students will:
– Generate story ideas using “story seeds”
– Analyze mentor texts with a student-friendly annotation guide
– Practice showing vs. telling (individual lesson available here)
– Draft in low-stakes chunks that build toward a full essay
– Revise using an editable, student-friendly rubric
 
🗣️ Mini-Lesson: Writing Meaningful Dialogue - Perfect as a stand-alone lesson or seamlessly embedded into the larger narrative unit.
A scaffolded, step-by-step lesson that helps students confidently add character voice, tension, and movement to their narratives.
This mini-lesson helps students:
✔️ Understand the purpose of dialogue in narrative writing
✔️ Learn and correctly apply dialogue punctuation rules
✔️ Use dialogue to reveal character, advance plot, and create tone
Includes:
– Scaffolded student notes with definitions, formatting rules, and sample dialogue excerpts
– Clear examples showing how dialogue enhances storytelling
– A customizable exit ticket to check understanding or guide next drafting steps
 
🎁 BONUS INCLUDED: Letter to Your Future Self Reflection Activity
 
🎯 This Bundle is Perfect For:
– Narrative writing units
– Back-to-school or end-of-year identity work
– Post-testing creative resets
– SEL-infused writing instruction
– ELA classrooms grades 8–12