Now that your students have finished writing a rough draft and made revisions to their narrative writing, it is time to craft an amazing title for the story! This post is part of a series of writing workshop mini lessons scaffolded for parents and teachers who are looking for ideas to teach students how to write an effective narrative essay.
Why wait to craft a title after the story is written? So many times students want to make a title for their story before writing it. When students are done writing rough drafts and revising their stories, they might have better ideas for a title to their narrative writing. Their writing transforms from the beginning stages until now and their creative brains are in high gear.
1. TEACH
Go over the following elements of a crafty title with your students.
- Always write the paper first!
- It should tell what the paper is about.
- It should grab the reader’s attention. (catchy phrase or phrase of a song)
- It should introduce the tone of the paper.
- Don’t be afraid to use a subtitle!
2. MENTOR TEXT
Look at some titles of books with your class. Discuss how the author chose the title for the books. Some good examples are:
My Rotten Redheaded Brother by Patricia Polacco
Sarah Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
3. MODEL
If you followed the series of mini lessons for writing workshop, you are writing a story with your class. Modeling is so important so students will have a “model” example of what they could do with their own story. Take the story you wrote and revised with your class. Now it is time to craft a creative title! Ask students for suggestions and make a list of possible titles. Vote on the most creative title for your class story!
4. TAKE NOTES
Students should add this writing mini lesson to their writing notebooks. If you are using interactive notebooks, here is an example:
If your writing workshop doesn’t offer enough time for interactive writing notebooks, you can give them mini anchor charts to paste in their notebook so they will have a resource to use with the next narrative writing prompt!
5. PRACTICE
Students should practice writing creative titles in groups. Give students a variety of writing prompts and ask them to create possible titles. Or read a picture book to your students WITHOUT showing the title. Have them create and title and then share the author’s choice for the title.
6. APPLY
Students should apply this mini lesson to their own narrative writing. Create a couple crafty titles for the story and then pick a favorite!
7. SHARE
Always share. Students learn so much from each other!
I hope these ideas helped you and your students create a crafty title for their narrative writing!
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This lesson is also included in the STEP-BY-STEP WRITING® Program with mini-lessons designed to scaffold through the writing process. Writing units included are sentence structure, paragraph writing, narrative writing, opinion writing, and informative writing. See what is included in the image below and click on it to learn more about them! You will turn your reluctant writers into ROCKSTAR WRITERS™!
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