Narrative Writing Tips
In narrative writing, our aim is to move students beyond writing a simple recount of events, dialogue and characters. We do this by teaching them to: write rich descriptions of setting and characters; improve the complexity and maturity of their ideas; and to write with figurative language. The aim is to lift students to the top of the pyramid and 10% of all students.
We also teach students to go beyond literal meaning to include more inferential meaning in their writing, e.g. instead of “The puppy played with the ball”, write “A ball rolled across the lawn pursued by a flurry of paws.” Students find inferential meaning particularly challenging but can master the concept with ongoing writing practice. This also delivers flow-on improvements in reading comprehension.