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Printout
Qualities of Good Storytelling
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| Grades | 6 – 8 |
| Type | Learning New Skills |
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As young adults begin to find their own writing style, it is important to read different genres of books and focus on good storytelling. This printout helps children focus on books that they are currently reading to see different models of well-told stories.
How to Use This Printout
Help your child become a better storyteller and writer by choosing books of different genres and by different authors that all model good storytelling in different ways. Use this printout for guiding examples to find different characteristics of good writing in the different books your child is reading.
- Find a variety of books that the child you are working with is currently reading or has read in the near past. Discuss with the child a very brief synopsis of how the books were the same and different in regards to the writing style.
- Print one or more copies of the "Qualities of Good Storytelling" chart and make it available to the child or children with whom you are working. Ask the child to look through the list of bullets that describe a well-told story, and ask him/her if he/she has seen any of these characteristics in the texts he/she has read recently.
- Have the child make notes next to the bullets about which texts did an especially good job of following each of the specific characteristics of good storytelling.
- Discuss with the child the notes he/she took and also discuss how he/she thinks that the texts he/she read could be improved using any of the characteristics that the author did not already use.
More Ideas to Try
- Have the child with whom you are working take a piece of his/her own writing and examine it using the printable. Discuss areas of strength and weakness. You may or may not choose to have the child revise his/her writing based on weaknesses that you found using the printable.
- Ask your child to revise a chapter or part of a book he/she has recently read using the characteristics found in the printable. Have him/her get creative and see what he/she can do to the author's writing style by making changes based on the qualities of good storytelling!