Teaching Personal Narratives: First and Second Grade

The Personal Narrative

As teachers or homeschooling parents we know that the personal narrative it a personal story in the first person. For younger students such as first and second grade, when teaching personal narratives we want to keep the explanation as simple as possible so that they can understand what is expected from a personal narrative.

Guidelines of rules for younger students:

A Personal Narrative:

• Tells what you did
• Tells what you saw
• Tells how you feel
• Written so that it sounds like you are talking, like a conversation
• Is written in order
• Is written so that the reader udnerstands what happened
• Uses the words: “I”, “me”, “my”

Practicing:

After going over the rules for the personal narrative, have students take turns by making personal sentences.

Examples of these sentences can be:

• I went camping yesterday.
• My mom made a cake for my birthday.
• Me and my brother love ice skating.

By having the students work on shorter sentences, it will prepare them for writing a longer personal narrative. They will start to grasp the understanding of what kinds of senetnces and words will be found in a personal narrative.

Activities:

These language arts activities will help to extend the students’ knowlege of the personal narrative.

1. Complete the fill in the blanks worksheet below. This worksheet allows students to fill in the blanks using the words I, me or my.
2. Have students complete their own personal narrative story about what they did over the weekend. Remind them of the rules and to especially use words like I, me and my.

Worksheet

Book Suggestions

Book Suggestions Based on Personal Narrative:

1. My Five Senses by Aliki
2. The Moon and I by Betsy Byars
3. I’m the Big Sister Now by Michelle Emmert
4. When I Was Nine by James Stevenson
5. A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams
6. Today I Feel Silly by Jamie Lee Curtis