Narrative Length– How to Get Your Students to Write More
Does narrative length matter? Yes. It matters. Even though the ATLAS rubric does not mention length and even though our standards do not specify length–length matters.
Last school year, teachers were invited to meet virtually with Cambium over the course of five days. Teachers came back to their schools with lots of notes.
What we learned–
“The longer narratives tend to get the highest scores. Students must develop the plot fully…”
“If your writing is too brief, convention scores tend to be lower. There is less to score, so if you mess up, it hurts.”
Okay–then how long is good enough?
Since we were not provided narrative students samples, my students and I delved into the informative and argumentative student samples; we discovered that length does matter. The student samples that scored higher were longer. My students counted the words and came up with a range for their grade level. The perk of conducting this activity with my students–they got to personally see that length did indeed matter; they didn’t have to take my word for it. They also were the ones who chose the length GOAL. For example, the 7th graders decided that 500 words was the magic number to succeed on the ATLAS Narrative. Could students write more? Yes! Could students fall short of 500? Yes! They were simply aiming toward that goal by testing time.
In my February 2024 Writing on Command Crash Course Workshop held at Arch Ford, I claimed that establishing WORD COUNT CHAOS produces results.
I stand by that. Length must be a focus–a goal for the students. Students must care how long their narratives are because well-developed narratives are longer. Ironically, Jason Campbell, a 5th grade teacher at Ruth Doyle Middle School here in Conway, messaged me yesterday to tell me that his students were so excited to start typing their spooky stories (How apropos!). They asked him, “Do we FINALLY get to start writing today?”
“We were even creating some word count chaos,” Jason told me. I love that. Since his students just made their transition from short idiom stories to full length narratives, from a sentence count of ten or so focus to a word count focus, they needed something to fire them up. When students are invested in length–they are invested in learning the techniques that make elaboration possible.
Once students have learned to write awesome short idiom stories and have learned the narrative techniques that make their stories shine, they are in a good position to move on. Consequently, we capitalize on their feelings of success by providing them techniques to help them write more–elaborative techniques.
***Links to free resources are on the Google document: Elaborative Techniques How To and Templates
MUST HAVE Elaborative Techniques for ALL Students
FULL CIRCLE TECHNIQUE–
It lengthens the beginning and the end of a narrative in a powerful and game-changing way. If you have not explicitly taught full circle yet, the introductory slides will help you get started. If you have taught this already, and students have confidently started to use it in their idiom stories, just remind them that it is an elaborative technique too because it lengthens the story; it doesn’t just draw the reader in and add instant organization. You can illustrate this really easily through the Teaching Full Circle Activity. I found some really short (and I mean short) fables and wrote some short idiom stories so students could practice adding full circle. This activity really helps students to see full circle’s power and how it can lengthen a narrative. Lastly, you can keep full circle going strong as you move on by continuing to Practice Full Circle in numerous ways.
DIALOGUE–
It can be sprinkled throughout the beginning-middle-end. As Jason Campbell reminded his students last week: “Choose dialogue that helps the readers get to know your characters.” I like that. Once students realize the power of dialogue, they want to use it all of the time. However, they need to be encouraged to sprinkle it in their story–and it can be sprinkled in the beginning and the middle and the end. If the dialogue of a story or novel you are reading is done particularly well–point it out. Once students grow writers–they can examine their texts for meaning and for writing style. If we do this–our students start to realize how intricately connected reading and writing are. Feel free to use the Dialogue Practice Template and look at the slide that shows you how you can continue to emphasize dialogue as you move on.
IMAGERY–
Writers don’t want to TELL us the story, they want to PUT US RIGHT THERE WITH THEM–imagery accomplishes this and can be utilized beginning-middle-end. Unfortunately, most students don’t do this automatically when they write stories, so they have to be explicitly taught how to use imagery. Jason Campbell illustrated this point in our ATLAS Narrative Session this past summer. He showed the participants a first draft without imagery, and then he showed them his story with imagery. He then asked them to examine the differences between the two. If you do this with your students, it is easy for them to see how much imagery (detail) adds to the story–including making it much longer. Then if you want to give your students practice, you can use one of the imagery templates. Another way you can practice is by giving your students an excerpt of a story they are reading and have them locate the imagery–the details that appeal to their five senses. Lastly, you can examine the slide from this past summer that reminds participants how to continue practicing Imagery.
FOR FUN Elaborative Technique for ALL Students
HYPHENATED MODIFIER–
Oh my goodness–hyphenated modifiers are so much fun. Like dialogue, they reveal a lot about the speaker's personality. The really neat aspect to teaching hyphenated modifiers is that students start to understand the role of adjectives.
What is a HYPHENATED MODIFY? It’s a really long adjective.
A really-long-and-quite-humorous adjective.
As you can see in my example, the hyphens go between all of the words that function as the adjective for the noun. There is not a hyphen before the noun.
The example I use on the introductory slide is:
After my mom embarrassed me in front of my friends by telling them how messy my room was, I glared at her. Without a pause, she turned to me and gave me that don’t-you-glare-at-me-Missy-or-you’ll-have- more-to-clean-than-just-your-room look.
You can see how fun this is. You can also see that it shows unusual skill. Some of your students will eat this up. I have created a fun activity to teach hyphenated modifiers.
MUST Have Elaborative Techniques for
Students Who Struggle With Length
FLASHBACK, DREAM, or NESTED STORY–
For students who are overly worried that they can’t write a long story, introduce them to the idea of including flashbacks, dreams, or nested stories into their own narratives.
The best way to achieve this is to show them examples. Students will also tell you about books they’ve read and movies they’ve watched that use these methods of elaboration. Model the use of these techniques for your students. I wrote an example of a nested story. One of my characters in my story tells a story. Several of my students utilized dreams, flashbacks, or nested stories within their narratives. It’s worth teaching and worth spending time showing them how to accomplish this. I denoted my nested story with italics. However, we talked about using a line or dotted line to show nested stories, flashbacks, and dreams as well. There are several ways to accomplish this–students just need to know they should probably set it (the flashback, dream, or nested story) off somehow.
Up-the-Ante Elaborative Techniques for ALL Students
DASH–
The DASH is my jam. My students last year would have told you that I am the DASH queen. I love them more than anything else. They are part of my voice as a writer. I share that quality with poet Emily Dickinson. She was the first DASH queen.
The DASH is a pause; it marks an abrupt break or pause in a sentence. It adds extra information, and therefore, can qualify as an elaborative technique. Use of DASHES adds length!
The brief teaching of the skill on the Daring DASH Practice Activity shows students how to insert the information using a DASH at the end of a sentence and in the middle of a sentence. I was fortunate enough to be reading a book with my students in which the author used DASHES frequently and powerfully.
I spent just a portion of one 50 minute class period teaching the DASH. At the conclusion of the quick lesson, I held a DASH contest. If students liked their DASH sentence, they could write it on a sticky note and place the note on an EXAMPLE DASH SENTENCES CHART. I typed up the DASH sentences that were submitted, and students voted for their favorite. This was their favorite:
“I used to listen to Dad’s stories–stories about the war.”
The absolute BIGGEST perk about the DASH is it can substitute for a comma, a period, or a semicolon. It is that versatile! It also shows sophistication because most writers (especially student writers) do not use them. If students are unsure of the punctuation needed–they can use their FRIEND the DASH.
Be sure to discuss the difference between a hyphen and a DASH–not just their function–but how they look. A hyphen is one click on the keyboard. A DASH is two. Click click.
SIDE COMMENT–
I share this with you in the same category with the DASH because it essentially fulfills the same role–it adds extra information–thus making the narrative longer. Side comments in narratives tend to add humor, but they don’t have to add humor. They can simply add extra information too.
There are no rules within the parentheses either–the words can be fragments or complete sentences. One can include capitalization and/or punctuation but doesn’t have to do so.
You can use the side comment anchor chart to teach the technique explicitly and there are student samples taken from idiom stories.
Examples that add humor:
ANAPHORA–
ANAPHORA is so powerful. When a writer wants to make a point, especially an emotional one, then ANAPHORA is a must. No wonder Martin Luther King, Jr. used it so skillfully in his “I Have a Dream'' speech. When he slips into “I have a dream…”, he is cueing the reader to PAY ATTENTION. (and while paying attention–feel his emotion and urgency) In narratives, the reader uses anaphora to show emotion. This is accomplished by repeating the beginning of a sentence two or more times. That is what adds the length. You have two anchor charts to explicitly teach anaphora, a practice activity template, and student narrative samples from idiom stories.
Another MUST–The Pre-Planning Organizer
PRE-PLANNING ORGANIZER–
There is no doubt that teaching your students to fill in a pre-planning organizer will ensure a longer narrative. Why? Your students will be quickly planning the beginning, the middle, and the end of their stories. I have pre-planning organizer slides you can use with your students as well as a student sample and her narrative that resulted from her pre-planning. Just remember–after you introduce the pre-planning organizer template to your students, have your students create them whenever you use them. They need to be able to recreate the organizer from memory during the ATLAS Writing Test. Check out the slide that tells you all the different ways you can reinforce the pre-planning organizer.
A Final Note on Tracking Word Count
If your students are typing their narratives on a Google Doc, you can show them how to display the word count on their document as they type. This is important because their ATLAS writing test automatically lets them track their word count; it is located in the bottom right hand corner. (My students were tickled when they saw this.)
To display word count on a Google Doc–click on TOOLS. Then click on WORD COUNT. Lastly, check the box that says: DISPLAY WORD COUNT WHILE TYPING. The word count shows up in the bottom left hand corner. In fact, I am ending this blog with exactly 2137 words.
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