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Personal
Narratives ~ Inspiration
SUMMARY: Students use the excitement of their Hidden Villa field trip to facilitate learning the personal narrative writing style. As part of this particular unit on personal narrative, students learn to analyze what they learned from their chosen experience. This project can be extended into a very powerful family-school activity (separate unit). DURATION: 1
to 3 weeks GRADES: 2nd-5th
CALIFORNIA
STANDARDS |
| This
unit touches on the same standards for 2nd through
5th grades, though as students progress through the grades their
understanding deepens and becomes more sophisticated.
This unit offers ideas that can be taken to
differing levels of complexity and can be easily adapted
for any of these grades. Writing 1.0 (writing strategies
including complete sentences, paragraphs, quotations,
revision and editing) Writing
2.0 (narratives, sensory details) |
HIDDEN
VILLA GOALS |
| Writing
personal narratives requires students to remember and
reflect on their Hidden Villa experiences. This reinforces
their memory, not so much of the information they learned,
but of their own personal growth - as learners, explorers
and caretakers in the natural world. This particular personal narrative unit validates experiential learning by asking students to reflect on how their Hidden Villa field trip has changed them. Examples from my students
range from understanding how much work goes into milking a cow to realizing how successfully overcoming challenges at Hidden Villa has inspired them to participate more in class. |
CLASSROOM
RELEVANCE |
I have learned that the most difficult step in writing personal narratives is selecting a significant memory. Before our field trip to Hidden Villa, my students found this writing style to be very challenging because they were not able to choose experiences that lend themselves to the style.
It
was entirely different teaching experience when we
studied personal narrative after our field trip to
Hidden Villa. All of my students were excited to share with others their fun, interesting, and meaningful experiences at Hidden Villa. Also, because I
had participated in the field trip with my students
I was much better able to guide my students in choosing
their topics and developing their ideas. After achieving success, it was easier for my students to write personal narratives of other experiences. |
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