Have you been wondering how to teach 2nd graders to write a personal narrative? It can feel overwhelming if your school doesn’t provide a writing curriculum (or worse, it’s an awful one). You might find yourself frantically googling ‘how do you teach a personal narrative to 2nd grade?!’ Well, don’t worry! I’ve got you covered. I’m going to share all about my 2nd grade personal narratives writing unit!

What’s included in this 2nd grade personal narratives writing unit?

Unit Documents

First up, you’re provided with everything you need to organize your lesson planning –

• List of common core standards that align with the unit
• Suggestions for differentiation
• Suggested lesson times (no matter how long your writing block is)
• Unit scope and at-a-glance calendar
• Lesson materials list (so you know exactly what is needed for each lesson at a glance)
• Video overview to help organize and implement the unit
• Hyperlinked table of contents (so you can jump straight to the pages you need)!

Personal narrative 2nd grade Lesson plans

Next, there are 25 step-by-step lesson plans. These one page scripted plans are easy to grab and teach!

This is NOT one of those big box curriculums where you have to sift through 10 pages of background teacher information for each lesson or read from the most BORING script. I hear so many teachers say that those curriculums are “Not teacher friendly, wordy and annoying to follow. SO many pages to read for just one lesson!“

Conversely, the lessons in this unit follow a simple format of mini lesson, think and share, and independent writing time. There’s a short script and differentiation is included for the writing tasks. You can stop spending hours of your precious time on evenings and weekends writing lesson plans from scratch or reading those awful ones I mentioned earlier!

Personal narrative writing posters

As you’re teaching, there’s nothing worse than just talking AT students and having them zone out and look elsewhere. That’s why this 2nd grade personal narratives writing unit includes 21 engaging posters to display as you teach!

You can refer to the posters as you teach or revise certain concepts. There are definitions, explanations, and examples for everything covered in the unit!

What if you don’t fancy printing and laminating? It’s okay, you can just show the PDF on your interactive whiteboard!

There are so many topics covered. For example, you’ll find a parts of a paragraph poster, structure of a personal narrative poster, and editing checklist poster.

Mentor texts

You’re busy, right? I bet the last thing you want to do is source mentor texts. Whether you hit up Amazon or your school library, either way it takes time and/or money.

Well, this writing unit includes six original mentor texts! They are engaging and help show students a personal narrative example. They’ll see what their writing needs to be like!

The mentor texts align well with the lessons (for example, a mentor text about a beach day is read during a lesson where students write about a fun day).

Every mentor text has examples of the concepts and features of a narrative that are taught in this unit (for example, all the mentor texts have hooks, linking words etc).

Wanna save on printing? Just the like posters, you can show the mentor texts as a PDF. Even better, there are PowerPoint versions too!

Click here to grab the unit from this website you’re on right now. Use the code TERRIFIC10 at checkout to save 10%!

Personal narrative writing prompts, graphic organizers, and worksheets

Once you’re finished the mini lesson, it’s time for students to write! This unit includes –

• 17 personal narrative graphic organizers / worksheets
• 1 writing prompt pre-assessment
• 8 lined pages (for first drafts and crafts)
• 2 checklists

I hear many teachers say that the big box curriculum that they are provided with is so boring for students. That’s why I made sure that this unit has ENGAGING student activities!

These worksheets have been designed to cater to a range of students. Five of the activities have lines for writing and they are offered in both dotted and plain lines.

However, the rest of the printables are graphic organizers and have boxes for students to share their answers. You may have some students working well below their grade level. In this case, they can draw pictures and write words/short sentences for their responses (without the stigma of needing a different printable). Students working at or above grade level can write lengthy answers to fill the boxes.

The boxes allow students to share their answers easily, no matter the size of their handwriting!

I hear many teachers complain that the curriculum they’re given is “too open ended and vague” and “too difficult for the kids”

Or worse, that “it never covered the basics, not enough solid instruction. It expects students to just sit and write for long stretches”

In this unit, students are NOT told to just ‘go off and write’ as if that will magically make them good writers! In this unit, each concept is explicitly taught and students learn all about the structure and features of a personal narrative. They use the printables to work on what they have learned.

how to make teaching writing more fun

These activities have been designed to be engaging for students! There’s fun clip art and boxes. Students get the opportunity to draw illustrations and color in.

In this writing unit, your students will develop a love of writing. The graphic organizers, interactive notebooks, and final craft will engage students much more than a blank piece of paper!

Wanna save on printing? You can display the activities instead. You could print one copy (perhaps in a large size) and display in your classroom. If you don’t have the ability to print at all, you could share these activities digitally (on an interactive whiteboard, TV, projector, computer, or laptop).

In both of these scenarios, students can recreate the activity on plain paper, lined paper, or in their notebooks/workbooks and write their responses. They could even type their answers digitally.

Fun fact, the pictures in this post are included in the writing unit so that you and/or your students can see examples of the activities!

Interactive notebooks

Hands-on is always best! That’s why this unit includes three interactive notebooks. Students can share their ideas in a fun and interactive way. Two of them are brainstorming activities. One is a beginning, middle, and end activity for teaching the structure of a personal narrative.

EDITING CHECKLISTS

How do you revise or edit a personal narrative?

Once students write a draft of their final writing piece, there are two checklists to help them edit and revise their work! Students complete self, peer, and adult edits.

Writing folder

Where will your students store all of their work? There’s a workbook cover provided in this unit that comes in boy and girl versions! You can also choose between the wording ‘folder, journal, or notebook’.

Interested in the unit? Click here to grab it from TPT!

Personal narrative writing craft

The unit ends with an exciting writing craft!

Students are writing a personal narrative on lined paper, but that’s where it ends in most boring writing units. But not this unit! Instead, students get an opportunity to be creative and make something hands-on after the writing part!

I’ve never understood why some people are against crafts. If they are messy or not educational, I get it. But in this case, your students are just getting to ENJOY writing a narrative with something a little artsy as a reward after their hard work. It’s perfect for parent teacher night or sending home with students! It’s something for students to be proud of!

The craft comes in four versions (boys, girls etc) and there’s even a tutorial video for you and/or your students to watch, so that you know how to make it.

The craft asks students to write about a happy memory that they have chosen! After all, students love to write about things that they are interested in.

Publishing party

Time to celebrate! After creating the craft and final writing piece, students get to share their work with their peers.

This is where you get to whip out the certificates and compliment notes so that students can cheer each other on!

It’s so important to celebrate your students’ hard work. The compliment notes and certificates come in black and white versions too.

early finishers

There’s always a few high flyers who finish early. Instead of having them read a book or whatever, why not make sure that they are still learning and practicing their writing skills?

In this unit, there are 24 task cards (in color and black and white) where students can write in response to a personal narrative writing prompt.

Narrative Writing assessment rubric

It’s important to assess your students’ writing and that’s why an assessment rubric is included in this unit.

But there’s nothing worse than grading on a rubric that you can’t make sense of. So, I made sure to include examples and elaborations to help you understand the rubric. There’s even a video!

What lessons are taught in the unit?

Here’s a look at the lessons:

• What is a personal narrative?
• What is a good sentence?
• Brainstorming ideas
• Narrowing down ideas
• The structure of a narrative
• What will my narrative be about?
• Creating characters
• Describing a setting
• Writing a problem or event
• Creating a solution
• Writing a narrative
• Linking words
• Sentence stretching
• Show, don’t tell
• Start with a hook
• Actions, thoughts, and feelings
• Writing a paragraph
• Writing an ending
• The brainstorm
• Planning a narrative
• The first draft
• Time to revise
• Time to edit
• The final draft
• Publishing party

Are you short on time?

This 5 week unit has EVERYTHING you need, because let’s be honest, teachers are time poor.

Let’s get your evenings and weekends back, my friend! Take a break from lesson planning and searching for engaging materials. It’s all right here.

This unit comes from Terrific Writing. It’s a curriculum that is standards based (to the common core) and genre based.

Are you struggling to teach writing? Do your students hate writing lessons?

Does your school not provide you with a writing curriculum? Or worse, is it awful? 

What if there was a way for your writing lessons to be engaging for students and enjoyable for you to teach?

Check out unit 1 of Terrific Writing today! Click here to grab it on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Wanna save 10%?

Click here to grab the unit from this website you’re on right now. Use the code TERRIFIC10 at checkout!

P.S. – Interested in free crafts and worksheets? Access my free resource library here!