Prewriting for Personal Narratives
Prewriting is your first step in writing a personal narrative. These prewriting activities will help you select a topic to write about, gather important details about the topic, and organize your thoughts before you begin a first draft.
Prewriting to Select a Topic
Explore topic ideas.
The goal for your narrative is to share a personal experience that taught you something or left a lasting impression. To help you think of topic ideas, complete as many of the sentence starters that follow as you can. Each complete sentence could become a topic for your narrative. Make a copy of this Google doc or download a Word template.
- My friendship was tested one time when . . .
(Answers will vary.)
- My worst day in school was . . .
(Answers will vary.)
- I had to stand up for myself once when . . .
(Answers will vary.)
- I remember the time I won . . .
(Answers will vary.)
- I told a secret, and . . .
(Answers will vary.)
- My most embarrassing moment in school happened when . . .
(Answers will vary.)
- I wanted to be part of a certain group, but . . .
(Answers will vary.)
- A neighbor helped me (scared me, surprised me), and . . .
(Answers will vary.)
Choose your topic.
Choose a topic for your narrative. Pick from the topics suggested by the sentence starters above, or choose another topic you have in mind.
Prewriting to Gather Details
Before you can share a story, you need to remember all the important things that happened. Asking and answering the 5 W’s and H questions can activate your memory and help you record important details about your experience.
- Who was involved in the experience?
- What exactly happened? (the actions or events)
- Where did it happen?
- When did it happen?
- Why did it happen? (the background)
- How did you change because of the experience?