Mapping a Special Place: A Prewriting Strategy for Personal Narratives
Picture this: You’re in your classroom, teaching your students how to brainstorm ideas for a personal narrative.
You’ve made the heart map to help them with prewriting, you’ve got a list of ideas in their notebooks, and you’ve modeled how to choose one.
You think they’re ready to go, so you set them loose.
And then you hear the grumbling.
“I don’t know what to write about.”
“I don’t have any ideas.”
“I never do anything.”
How often do you hear those comments from your students? Probably, like, at least once a week, and possibly once a day.
Why Kids Say “I Don’t Have Anything to Write About”
Why is this so hard for kids? They have a LIST for goodness’ sake! We made a heart map!
But hold on! Here’s the problem: that list – that map – has topics on it, right? Topics like “birthdays” or “pets.”
So let’s try it. If I’m going to write about “pets,” here’s what it sounds like:
“People have different kinds of pets. I have a pet, too. My pet is named Lucy. She is a black dog. She’s funny and nice. She likes to eat dog treats and take walks. She’s my best friend.”
Aw. That’s nice. It’s a list of details about Lucy. But is it a personal narrative? Oh, no, it is not.
When kids only have topics to choose from, they have trouble thinking of specific memories or times something happened to write about. And that’s exactly what a personal narrative is: a memory.
So how do we get kids to generate ideas for writing personal narratives without the complaints?
Here’s how.
Prewriting Strategy: Mapping a Special Place
In this video, I teach a really simple prewriting strategy that helps kids think of ideas for writing, every single time.
It’s called “Mapping a Special Place,” and it’s such a fun and easy way to teach kids to prewrite by digging into their memories. Anybody can do it.
Don’t believe me? Try it along with me in the video! All you’ll need is a piece of paper, a pencil, and your brain!
How to Teach Mapping a Special Place
- Pick a special place. A grandparent’s house, a backyard, a park, a favorite vacation spot. Somewhere kids have spent lots of time. (In the video, I map my grandparents’ house!)
- Draw a quick map. Sketch the rooms, the yard, the furniture, the big rock out front. It doesn’t need to be pretty – it just needs to jog their memory.
- Label the spots where things happened. Grandpa’s chair, the kitchen table, the swings. Each spot is a little story waiting to be told.
- Talk through the memories. Model it out loud first. What happened there? Who was there? How did it feel?
- Choose one memory to write about. Now kids have a whole map full of real moments – not just topics – so they can pick one and get moving!
This is a great one for kids who are stuck, kids who “never do anything,” and honestly, kids who just need a fresh way into their writer’s notebook.
Get More Small Group Writing Lessons
Mapping a Special Place is Writing Intervention Strategy Lesson #4 from my Narrative Writing Intervention Toolkit.
It’s 72 quick small group lessons for every step of the writing process, so when a kid gets stuck, you already have a strategy ready to go. Planning for writing intervention? Done!
Grab the Narrative Writing Intervention Toolkit here!
