Feedback for Narrative Writing
These leave behinds follow up on mini-lessons taught to the large group. They can be used with small
group conferences or one to one conferences.
After acknowledging what the student is doing well, you might say . . .
The writer is unfamiliar with this particular genre of writing.
Writers use mentor texts to help them imagine what they hope to write. They:
 Read the text and enjoy it as a story.
 Reread the text and ask, “How does this kind of story seem to go?”
 Annotate what they notice.
 Try to do some of what they noticed in their own writing.
The writer seems to paragraph randomly or not much at all.
Make a new paragraph here:
 New event
 A very important part that needs emphasis
 New time
 New place
 New character speaks
The story lacks tension.
To create edge-of-the seat tension, try this formula:
1. Someone really wants something.
2. Someone encounters trouble.
3. Someone tries, tries, tries (often with one or two failed attempts).
The beginning of the piece is lacking story elements or does not hint at larger issues or tension.
In the beginning, writers often reveal:
 Who the characters are and what they struggle with
 Where the story takes place and what kind of place it is
 Some of the larger issues at play
The ending of the piece seems incomplete or incongruous with the rest of the piece.
To find the best possible ending to a narrative piece, writers ask themselves:
 What is my story really, really about?
 What feelings or thoughts do I want readers to have at the end of my story?
 Have I tied up most of the loose ends and brought closure to most of the issues I created in
my story?
The writer is ready to learn about the use of flashbacks and flash-forwards.
Writers bring out the heart of their stories by embedding flashbacks or flash-forwards into the
sequence of events. They make these shifts in time clear to the reader by using phrases like:
 Thinking back to that day . . .
 I remember when . . .
 I imagined myself, four years later . . .
The writer has elaborated , but in seemingly haphazard ways.
Writers don’t just elaborate anywhere. They expand the parts of their story that relate back
to the theme or purpose they are trying to fulfill.
The writer has created a story that is sparse, with little elaboration.
Writers return to particularly significant portions of their story. These might include places where
 They are establishing setting
 They want to create tension
 Something important is happening
 The scene ties back to the theme of their story
They can elaborate using all they know about narrative technique, by including:
 Descriptive details
 Dialogue
 Internal Thinking
 Small, meaningful actions
The writer has written the external story but not the internal story.
Writers tell not just what happened in a story—the actions—but also how the character felt about
each of these events—the reactions.
The writer relies on dialogue and internal thinking to show what a character is thinking and feeling
and is ready for new techniques to achieve the same effect.
Writers rely on tiny actions to reveal big emotions.
The writer is not making using of literary devices.
Writers use literary devices to reveal meaning to a reader. They know that these complex narrative
techniques rarely just come to them—voila!—and magically work perfectly. Instead, writers need to
try a few different options and versions before settling on the revisions they’ll include in their drafts.
They might experiment with:
 Similes and metaphors
 Repetition
 symbolism
Conventions—these leave behinds cross forms