Focus Lesson Planning Sheet
Focus Lesson Imagining Stories From Ordinary Moments
(adapted from Calkins and Cruz, 2006)
Topic
Materials
Connection
Explicit
Instruction
Entries from teacher’s writer’s notebook to demonstrate thinking
Anecdotes or stories from teacher’s life
We have looked very closely this year at personal narrative stories
and how authors plan and write these kinds of stories. We spent a
lot of time writing our own personal narratives. We have also begun
looking at fictional narrative stories and thinking about what these
kinds of stories have in common. Now you are ready to learn about
writing fiction of your own.
Just as we did with personal narrative, we are going to begin by
talking about how authors collect their ideas to write fictional
stories. We are going to begin collecting story ideas in our writer’s
notebooks. The thing you might find surprising is that authors get
their ideas for fiction the same way they do for personal narrative,
by paying attention to and keeping track of the moments and issues
of their own lives.
A lot of people think that fiction writers just look up in the sky and
imagine a story. But that’s not how it works. Fiction writers pay
attention to what happens to them, to people they know, or people
they hear about. For example, ----- got the idea for----- by -------.
He (she) probably wrote an entry in his (her) writer’s notebook
about that moment -----, and later used that story idea for
inspiration for a fictional story. (One example is that E.B. White got
the idea for Charlotte’s Web by watching a spider build a web in the
corner of his barn. You may wish to substitute a different author
and his/her inspiration for this part of the lesson.)
So writers take that little piece of life and save it away in their
writer’s notebooks to come back to it later. Then they might think
to themselves “This gives me an idea… I could write a story about...”
Watch me show you want I mean. I was carefully rereading my
notebook and I remember writing an entry about _______. I
remember that happening and how I felt, but now I can imagine
some other things that weren’t really actually part of what
happened. I now can see other possibilities. I think to myself,
“What if ______” Give a few examples of some changes you could
make/add to the original episode as you begin to fictionalize it and
plan for a fictional story. So now I think that this is my story idea:
Briefly tell about a story that encompasses the original small
moment referred to in the Writer’s Notebook, but that now has
several changes and/or additions. (For example, if your original
entry was something about going to a baseball game maybe now you
could describe a story idea where a character goes to a game but
catches a fly ball and then is able to meet the player who hit the
ball with whom he/she becomes friends and learns baseball tips.
The original small moment part of life is encompassed in the new
“fictionalized” story idea.)
Guided
Practice
You heard my original entry, my small moment, from my writer’s
notebook which I reread and thought and imagined more about.
Then you heard my story idea based on that small moment. Turn
and talk to a partner about how they are the same and how they are
different, especially what you noticed that I changed or added in
my story idea. Allow for discussion.
Send Off [for
Independent
Practice]
So writers of fiction need imagination to write, but they don’t
imagine everything. They look into the small moments of their lives
and see other possibilities. That’s how they use their imaginations,
to see story possibilities based in ordinary small moments.
Today reread your notebooks. If you read an entry which inspires
you in imagine other possibilities, mark it. You may wish to come
back to this for a fiction story idea later.
Group Share
Did anyone find an ordinary small moment entry that inspired them
to imagine other possibilities?