A Familiar Path - Mommy Tells a Story

Apr. 23, 2006
Mommy Tells a Story

My kids usually beg me to tell them a story at bedtime, especially if I don't read to them that night. Sometimes I can pull a rabbit out of a hat and come up with a pretty good, "When I was a little girl..." story.

But sometimes I tell this story, "Once there was a mommy who was very tired and so she fell asleep. The End."

I get a lot of "aw, mom's" for that one. But it really worked to my advantage the other day when we were learning about writing narratives.

Now writing a narrative is one of the best types of writing there is because it is simply telling a story. So in illustrating the parts of a good story like setting, characters, plot... and so on I took them back to my very bad bedtime story.

"Why do you hate for me to tell you the story about the very tired mommy?"

"Because nothing happens." they say.

"That's right. But if I added some stuff to that story it could be a good story. Let me show you. Do you know what the setting is? That's describing what's around you, where you are, what you see or smell or hear. What if we put the mommy in a castle. It's a very dark and huge castle and when she talks it echos so she whispers all the time. The castle is so big that she is always losing her family and having to walk through many rooms looking for them."

They are looking at me with interest, suddenly this story has new life. We work together and add some details and eventually another character and a plot develops.

This is the way I taught my daughters about writing narratives. And immediately when we finished developing the story outloud they wanted to try one. I have to write Emeline's stories for her now, but she likes dreaming them up. Clementine likes to write her narratives then add illustrations.

Writing isn't all about the 3 point essay. Make it fun and write some narratives.

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