Narrative Writing: Gooney Bird Greene

At the start of the school year, we focus on narrative writing.  We were fortunate enough a few years ago to attend a PD workshop hosted by Nancy Boyles.  She was very passionate about writing and she showed us some very simple ways to help our students improve their narrative writing.  She introduced us to her writing icons.  This week I have been focusing on “Snapshots” and “Gestures” as my students are working on adding details and descriptions to the setting and the characters.


I have the icons posted in my room and I have been using them in conjunction with other things we have been reading and working on.  I am currently using the book Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry as a read aloud.  If you haven’t read it, I would highly recommend it. It is about a second grader who tells the most amazing stories.  My students laugh out loud as I read and they LOVE the character of Gooney Bird Greene.  Lois Lowry uses wonderful language to describe Gooney Bird and I created a few lessons to go along with these descriptions.


I typed out the descriptions that Lois Lowry uses in the book and I asked my students to read them and highlight the describing words/phrases.  Then they had to use a pencil to circle any gestures.  Once they finished, they had to illustrate Gooney Bird based on the description.


The next day my students each got a sticky-note and a blank description paper.  They planned out their ideas on the sticky-note.  Then they each wrote their own description and illustrated it.  They came out amazing! I loved that they tried to emulate Lois Lowry’s style.  I think that we are off to a great start in writing and I am looking forward to using more of Nancy Boyles’ ideas along with the things that are interesting to my students.
~Heather