Narrative text structure interventions focus on making seemingly invisible structures, like story elements (characters, setting, plot, rising and falling action, climax/conflict, conclusion/resolution), more visible. When students learn these structures, they can understand the most important parts of the text. This page includes intervention strategies that you can use to support your students' understanding of narrative text structure. As you read, consider which of these interventions best aligns with your student's strengths and needs in the whole-learner domains.
Explicit Instruction
To support your students' understanding of narrative text structures, you should start by explicitly teaching this concept. This example uses an excerpt from The Giver. This sounds like:
Explain the Skill/Concept. Define narrative text structures, and explain the activity. ("A narrative text structure is like the blueprint that an architect works with when he builds a house. The story has rules, called story elements, that every author follows to make it interesting, just like the blueprint has rules that ensure that a house is built on a strong foundation. One narrative text structure is called story elements..." "Today, we will be learning how to identify narrative text structures." )
Model Skill with Examples. Think aloud about how you figure out a narrative text structure. ("I know that the story will start by introducing the characters and the setting. So, when I begin to read a story, these are the story elements I look for first." (Teacher reads first page of The Giver). "So, on the first page, I am introduced to Jonas. I am thinking he might be my main character since he is the first to be introduced. It sounds like he is reflective because he is very thoughtful about the words he uses to describe his feelings. On this first page, I also begin to learn about the setting. It says Jonas lives in a community, and there are planes flying overhead. Both of these details make it seem a lot like where I live. But it also says that places aren't supposed to fly over the community, so this makes me wonder if there is something special about the community. As I keep reading, I'll look for clues that give me more information about the character and setting.")
Model Skill with Non-Examples. Think aloud about how to read without using narrative text structure clues ("Watch as I read this text without knowing that I should pay attention to narrative text structure." (Teacher reads first three paragraphs.) "That sounds fun the children are riding their bikes on the river. They are also confused. I'm not sure why they are confused, but I'll just keep reading anyway. Did you notice that I was paying attention to details that were unimportant and wouldn't help me understand the story? I might wonder who Jonas was or be confused later in the book if another plane flies by and the community is frightened. In order to understand the character and setting, I would need to go back and reread the information that I missed.").
Practice the Skill. Engage in the activity below to practice the skill with your student, providing feedback as necessary. ("Now you try identifying the story elements in the text.")
Activity A: Scrambled Stories
Scrambled Stories is an intervention that can be implemented with emergent readers to begin to build a student's "sense of story," or the implicit understanding of story elements. It requires the teacher to break a narrative text into parts and rearrange the events. Its effectiveness can be increased by making this truly multi-sensory: with the text broken up onto different pieces of paper, the student physically moves the events of the text back into the correct sequence. Throughout this activity, the teacher and students discuss what changes to make and why. Students can also identify the story elements as they rearrange the sentence strips. As students become more proficient in their ability to correctly sequence stories, the teacher can increase the level of complexity by adding in more events and details for students to sort.
Give the students sentence strips and ask them to rearrange the parts into a story that makes sense. "I have a story that is written out on these four strips of paper, but they've been mixed up. I need you to read the story and rearrange the strips so that they make sense."
Scrambled Stories in Action
Watch this clip to see how to execute Scrambled Stories. Notice how the teacher color-codes the sentence strips to help the student distinguish between individual sentences.
Activity B: Sequencing
Sequencing charts display a chain of events. They can be used to enhance comprehension (e.g., “What were the main events in the story?”) as well as to create timelines (e.g., in social studies). It makes content visually clear and organized for students.
Sequence chart. (n.d.). Copyright at Relay GSE. New York, NY: Relay Graduate School of Education.
Sequencing in Action
Give the students a graphic organizer (or have them draw the graphic organizer in their notebook). Tell students that, as they read, they will be identifying main events in the story. "Today, we will be looking for the main events in the story. As you read the story, identify the main events and write down a summary sentence of each event. Remember that you should focus on the parts of the story that lead up to the character's problem or the solution to the problem."
Implementation note: Students who are having trouble identifying main events in the story may benefit from drawing the story first.
Activity C: Plot Chart
Plot Charts, also called Story Maps, are particularly effective for teaching students to retell a story. They require students to think through specific events that lead up to both the problem and, later, the solution to the problem. Students can then use events they've mapped out on the charts to retell the story in its entirety. These charts can take many forms, but typically include the following narrative text elements: characters, setting, rising action, climax, conflict, action, and conclusion/resolution.
Criser, S. (2012). Plot Chart. Retrieved August 29, 2016 from http://rubbishtopublish.com/writing-tools/general-writing-information/story-structure-plot/
Plot Chart in Action
Give students a graphic organizer (or have them draw the graphic organizer in their notebook). Tell students that they will be identifying the story elements in the book as they read (or in a previously read book). As a class, review the definition of each story element. Then, allow students to collect information on the graphic organizer. "Today, you will be using your Plot Chart. As you read, use the graphic organizer to identify important story elements."
Lowry, L. (1993). The Giver. New York, NY: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group.
Think about the following scenario, which takes place after a teacher has explicitly taught about how to put story events in order and has given multiple opportunities for practice:
Teacher: "What is our first main event?"
Student answers with the climax: "They had a big fight, and the boy ran away!"
In such a case, what might you do?
When you are planning your lessons, you should anticipate that your students will make errors throughout. Here are a series of prompts that you can use to respond to errors. Keep in mind that all students are different, and that students might respond better to some types of feedback than others.
| Level of Support | Description of Scaffold | Script |
|---|---|---|
| Smallest Scaffold | Try again! Allows student multiple opportunities to practice new skill. You are trying to determine whether the student needs to be retaught the skill or just needs another opportunity to try again. | "Try again. Can you tell me how the story begins?" |
| Medium Scaffold |
Provide Resources. Allows the student to use resources to figure out the answer (including helpful supports such as a visual or a prompt).
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"You've told me the climax, or the highest point of action in the story. Can you remember the first event in the story that began the rising action?" "Look back to the second page of the text. Can you find what the first main event is?" |
| Highest Scaffold | Rewind. If students aren't understanding how to use one of the supports you've provided, go back and explicitly reteach the example, using the student's text. | "Let's review how we determine main events in the story...Let's look back on the events in the story together." |
If your student struggles to meet your objective, there are various techniques that you might try to adjust the activity so as best to meet your student's needs.
| Activity | Description of Strategy | Script |
|---|---|---|
All Narrative Text Structure Activities |
Make it Visible. Provide students with a graphic organizer to organize their thinking. | "We've read the story already. Now, let's think backwards. What important events led to the resolution of the story? Let's write them down." |
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Make it Move. Give students the opportunities to manipulate information related to text structures. For example, make a word sort with names of characters, setting, and key events on different cards, and have students sort them into the appropriate categories. |
"Here are the story map cards. Can you match up the examples with the category they go under?" |
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| Partner Up! Have your students be the "Expert" and explain different text structures to a partner, or have them read to younger reading buddies and teach them about text structure. | "Turn to a partner and show him your narrative text. Take turns explaining the plot, and each main event that was important to the plot." | |
| Practice, practice, practice. Text structures take different forms in different types of texts. Have students apply new skills across genres. | "Let's look at another text to examine how its text structure is similar to or different from this one." |