Small Moment Mapping

your map maker, Suzanne

Raise your hand if you've ever graded a student story that went daylight to dark, breakfast to dinner, sunrise to sunset.  They include all the details- what they ate for breakfast, who rode in the car with them and what they were wearing.  There is also that little part about them riding the roller coaster (A.K.A. the actual story- because isn't it always about a roller coaster?!)  *Camera pans to a sea of raised hands*

In an effort to fight this uphill battle, we talked about how the best stories take place in a matter of minutes, perhaps even seconds.  We read Shortcut by Donald Crews.  Before I read, I asked students to think about the amount of time it takes for this story to take place.  Afterward, we talked about how the events could take place in 15 to 20 minutes, definitely less than an hour.  We used our candy corn to narrow down our own idea about a time when we encouraged someone else.  

We created this foldable by folding the sides of a paper in to the center, creating two "doors".  Once students narrowed down their idea to "this one time" they drew a picture of the scene in the center of their foldable.  After drawing, we separated our side panels into five sections, labeled them, and kerneled our personal narrative.  

I adapted this idea from Ideas by Jivey.  I'm using her mentor sentence units with my 4th graders and I L.O.V.E love them!!  Thanks J. Ivey for your great idea and resources!