The Joy of Teaching 
Using Pinnacle Studio record a moment being told by a student. Then record a piece without voice being read by student. Ask if the first one could be put into words. How would you do that? Would you write every single word that was said? YES!
To help students focus on a purpose (rather than a bed to bed or whole event-vacation, wedding, game), students place events on a time line using Timeliner. After this task, students choose one event on the time line to explode (Barry Lane’s snap shot explosion idea).
Or use this Inspiration 6.0 version outline.
Use the edbydesign site for examples of student writing. The Pet Story section is the best place to find personal narrative type pieces although most are memoirs. Students can analyze these pieces to determine if they are focus on a moment or on several moments.
Students need an audience in order to have purpose to provide details. (this is especially a hard task for young students.) Ask student/s who they would want to know how they feel about that moment (they chose on the time line). Tell them that we are going to actually send this piece to them either by email or snail mail or hand carry. Then ask them, “What is the emotion that you want to share with this person?” Using the digital camera take pictures of the student “showing” those emotions. Have student to paste the pictures onto a word document where they write phrases/words describing what they see in the picture. Show don’t tell with your words.
To practice describing action, provide pictures (clip art, internet-news sites) that show action. Help students develop phrases using similes and metaphors.
A beginning of a piece isn’t necessarily a lead. A lead grabs the audience’s attention. Record some commercials on TV and discuss with students how the beginning of the commercial grabs your attention (this skill will be used for other genre as well.) Students pull out their library books or online stories and analyze the beginning of their books for leads. (not all books have good leads). Record some of the best leads on computer via scan converter. Analyze the leads and you will probably be able to break them down into categories.
Quotes
Questions
Shocking statement
All of which give a hint about the focused moment about to happen.
To develop ideas, make a prewriter with Inspiration/Kidspiration with the following sections
Emotions
Thoughts
Actions
Sensory
Site
Sound
Smell
Taste
Touch
List at least one thing in each section that relate to the specific moment.
To expand vocabulary for better word choice, description or detail, post this word document on a classroom computer and allow students to visit and type their contributions throughout the day, center time or whatever time suits your class. You could have several documents (words) up at one time. Show students how to multi-task between documents using the task tray at the bottom of the screen or by clicking on "windows" at the top of the screen.
Many times a student needs to focus on the moment by using richer language. Use the digital camera to take a picture of the student showing a facial expression experienced during the "moment" being told about in the personal narrative. Instruct the student to write as many words as possible to describe the expression. Students can use the Visual Thesaursus to for help in brainstorming words.
Created by Joy Lynn Cox Buckingham
jbucking@fayette.k12.ky.us
FCPS Technology Resource Teacher
October, 2002, 2003