Narrative Writing Prompt - The Pit
Use this narrative writing prompt during English to engage your students in the writing process. Get your students to start their story at the point of action. So instead of little Timmy walking through the forest, get them to have little Timmy stuck in the pit from the get go! That way, it’s an engaging start that will have the reader wanting to continue and find out how he gets out of the pit. From there, your students can start to back fill and set the scene. Get them to use high level adjectives to describe the character and figurative language when setting the scene. Remember to discuss story ideas with your class and write them on the board. This will help them when planning their story.
Story Starter
“We have been walking for hours, Sunny. I do not think my legs can carry me anymore.” It wasn’t as though I had not heard her, but she had begun to goad me. She was my sister, but her constant complaint was a bother every time we were in nature. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Bunny. You could have stayed home, and yet you wanted to tag along,” I managed to reply.
Narrative Writing Example
In this narrative writing example, our main characters are hopelessly lost. The story ends with the protagonist falling into a pit as pain ran through their body. This story has some wonderful examples of how students can use words other than “said”. Get them to write down all the different ways that the author has ended speech and see if they can apply it to their writing!
Writing Tip
Openers are a great way to start sentences. They’re fantastic because they add a bit of extra detail, and they also form part of a complex sentence, which gives you that important sentence type variety. Some opener examples include, “As the sun began to set, …” or “Just as she opened her eyes, …” or perhaps, “Without even thinking, …”. Make a bank of really strong openers and when you get stuck during writing, use one of them and it’ll give you idea inspiration.
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