Sequencing

I recently heard tell of a teacher struggling to teach sequencing of a story, so I, with few suggestions from fellow teachers, thought up this one:

Objective: Students will define sequencing and describe why the sequence of events is important to the outcome of story.

The sequence of a story is the order in which events occur--write that on the board.

Discuss why sequencing is important and how knowing the order in which events occur effect the outcome of a story.

Get out some of your favorite children's books, those without words will work the best. I made a list of my favorites in a previous post, click here for the link. Make color copies of the pictures and cut them out comic strip style. Make enough copies so that each group of 3 or 4 students can have a book, but they don't all have to be the same book. Make a larger copy for you to model the assignment for the class. I would make this a different book from those you give to the students.

Model for the class: using the larger copy of a book, put each picture on the board and think out-loud as you put the story in the correct order. Make sure to explain to students why you are ordering the pictures the way you are. Write the story as you have ordered the pictures with approximately 1 sentence per picture.

Pass out the copies of the picture books made for the students and give them about 10-15 minutes to correctly order the story and then write the story with approximately 1 sentence per picture. Students need only write 1 story per group.

Have a few groups share their stories and tell of 1 of the major problems they had in sequencing their stories. Ask other groups for suggestions on how they approached and solved that problem.

Now, rearrange the pictures on the board--switch 4 or 5 pictures around. Rewrite your story according to the new order. How does this change the outcome of the story? What impact does just changing one picture have?

Allow the students7-8 minutes to rearrange 4-5 of their pictures and rewrite their stories. Have a few groups share their revised stories. Did they gain any new insight on the importance sequencing?

What have students learned about sequencing? Why is it important to a story?

And bell.