Narrative writing: Making a Tree Map

This past week we were writing biographies. This form of writing is called 'narrative writing.' We wrote two biographies and to make things easier, to begin we started with a biography about a common person that all of the children could identify with: the teacher.

Using a Circle Map, we brainstormed and wrote various comments that came up.

From there, a Tree Map was made and the children wrote their biographies and drew pictures to go with the sentences.

The next step, would be to have children learn to take the information from the Circle Map and create their own Tree Maps. Adding another new twist is to incorporate the use of a pronoun to the Tree Map. This would allow for more interesting and varied sentences to be constructed. When pronouns are used they are included in parentheses or brackets.
Teaching children to make their own Tree Maps allows for greater creativity, more control, and an opportunity for freedom in self-expression. It also teaches children how to organize the information that has been gathered on the Circle Map, thus, using the logical skills of thinking and organizing, helping them learn to plan their thoughts as they begin to write.

Try this with your child at home. Review the ideas from the Circle Map. Draw the Tree Map diagram as shown. See what your child is able to come up with on his/her own! Let those creative juices flow!