Beginning the school year - sharing our stories.

The power of personal experience/writing.

A good idea is to prepare a small presentation about yourself - students will be extremely curious about their new teacher!

Give the a potted history of your life experience and tell them that over the year you will get to know all about them. 

Cray fishing with my uncle!

To begin the business of sharing tell them of the 5 or 6 best experience you had over the holidays and then ask them to mind-map ( or list) the 6 best things they did.


Through your examples model a range of emotions - sadness, happiness, excitement, scariness etc. Demonstrate the idea of talking /writing as if you were back in the situation - what you felt, saw, heard etc.

Helping catch the escaped rooster!

The could share their lists with each other in small groups and then ask them to choose one to write about to share with you.



The message you want to give them is that their lives are important  and to write a good personal narrative it is important to focus on a particular event and recall as much as possible - how you felt as if you were still there. You are introducing them into the idea of quality thought  rather than length.

After their work has been drafted out ( and quickly checked by you) their stories could be  written for display. Later they may be able to add a digital photo or a drawing as well.

Student could be encouraged to complete a short narrative about their own lives each week? Such writing contributes to their sense of identity.


Beginning of school year blog.