Mapping Life's Journey: Creating Your Graphic Life Map

1. Writing Personal Narrative & Digital Storytelling

2. Obectives • identify key moments, people, and places in their lives. • create an evaluative scale, from high points to low points, ranking the key moments. • order key moments in chronological order. • choose illustrations and text that relate to the key moments.

3. Content Standards • 5-3 State and develop a clear main idea for writing. • 5-4 Determine a purpose and audience. • 5-5 Use organizational strategies (e.g., rough outlines, diagrams, maps, webs and Venn diagrams) to plan writing. • 5-6 Organize writing beginning with an introduction and body and a resolution of plot, closing statement or a summary of important ideas and details. • 5-7 Vary simple, compound and complex sentence structures. • 5-8 Group related ideas into paragraphs including topic sentences following paragraph form and maintaining a consistent focus across paragraphs.  • 5-9 Vary language and style as appropriate to audience and purpose. • 5-10 Use available technology to compose text.  • 5-11 Reread and assess writing for clarity, using a variety of methods (e.g., writer's circle or author's chair). • 5-12 Add and delete information and details to better elaborate on a stated central idea and to more effectively accomplish purpose. • 5-13 Rearrange words, sentences and paragraphs, and add transitional words and phrases to clarify meaning.  • 5-14 Use resources and reference materials (e.g., dictionaries and thesauruses) to select more effective vocabulary.  • 5-15 Proofread writing, edit to improve conventions (e.g., grammar, spelling, punctuation and capitalization) and identify and correct fragments and run-ons. • 5-16 Apply tools (e.g., rubric, checklist and feedback) to judge the quality of writing. • 5-17 Prepare for publication (e.g., for display or for sharing with others) writing that follows a format appropriate to the purpose, using techniques such as electronic resources and graphics to enhance the final product.

4. NCTE Standards • 4 - Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.5 - Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes. 6 - Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts. 12 - Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

5. Resources • Graphic Map Pictures • Planning Sheet • Rubric

6. Symbolizing events • What are some images that people use as symbols for events in their lives? • Work with your group to review the images and brainstorm possible life events that the images might symbolize or illustrate? • Record these ideas.

7. Symbolizing events • Pick one person from your group to share one of your ideas. Try not to repeat ones that have been said. • Were there any others that we can post? • These lists will be used to work on individual graphic life maps. • Use the remaining time to browse the list more closely and brainstorm more ideas.

8. Samples • Sample 1 • Sample 2 • These are copies of peoples life maps. What do you notice about them? • How are the images used? • How did they rank items? • What about the amount of text that they wrote?

9. Creating Graphic Life Map • Brainstorm with your group significant life events. • Happy memories • Sad memories • Scary memories • Important places • Important people • Try to come up with at least 30 different life events and record your ideas on chart paper.

10. Creating Graphic Life Map • Present your group’s work to the class • After everyone has finished review the class ideas silently and begin brainstorming possibilities for your own individual life map in your journal. • Compile a list of at least 15 items that could be included on your life map.

11. Creating Graphic Life Map • Use the Graphic Life Map Planning Sheet to record your 15 life events and the date/time that they happened • Using a scale of -3 to +3 rate each event • In the image column you may draw a quick sketch or describe the type of image you wish to use. • Add a brief note that will help remind you of the event later.

12. Creating Graphic Life Map • Begin planning your own life maps, using the information gathered • Work collaboratively to share ideas and get positive suggestions • When you have finished, sketch out your life map. • Do you have a lot of +3s? • Do you have a lot of -3s?

13. Creating Graphic Life Map • Try to narrow down the events that you will publish to 10 things. • Try to pick the 10 most important things!

14. Publishing the Graphic Life Map • We will use Construction Paper to publish our graphic life maps • If time, we can also use the computer • We will add captions for each item and use images to represent each event. • The events will be connected using a road or highway.

15. Publishing Graphic Life Map • Make sure you have a piece of graph paper. • Put your 10 items in chronological order. • The year will go on the horizontal axis and the rating will go on the vertical axis. • Place your dots on the paper • Connect them using straight lines. • Transfer this to the construction paper

16. Creating Graphic Life Map • Besides each graphed event write a short description and add illustrations

17. Using your Graphic Life Map to Create Personal Narrative

18. You will need to. . . • identify the one main topic of a story • focus on one main topic • write a short narrative centered around one main topic

19. Identifying a Topic • Look at your graphic life map and pick one of the events that you have listed to write about • Think about that event in detail and brainstorm different things that you could write about.

20. For example. . . • Maybe you picked “The day I got my puppy” and some stories you could write about your dog might be • The first night he stayed at our house • The time that he chewed up my stuffed animal • The day our puppy learned to sit

21. For example. . . • My big brother Kurt • The time I accidentally punched him in the nose • The winter when we drove each other around the farm on the go-cart. • The time my grandpa threw him into the snow for throwing snowballs at me

22. For example • You might have picked “My Grandpa Died” or “My Grandma Died” • Write a specific story about them such as: • The time you stayed the night at their house • Their 50th wedding anniversary • Helping your grandpa around the farm.

23. Brainstorm • Take this time to brainstorm some topics that you think you could write about. • You may pick more than one event to brainstorm topics on, but you can only write about one of them.

24. Where do I begin?

25. Where should the story begin? • If the story is about bungee jumping at Grandfather Mountain, where should the story begin? • when your brother dares you to jump with a bungee cord. • when you start to climb the tower. • when you get to Grandfather Mountain. • when you decide to spend the weekend in the mountains.

26. Where does your story begin? • Look at your topic that you chose to write about and come up with 3 possible places/times during that day that you could start your narrative.

27. You Can’t Tell it All!

28. What to include • Having a focus is important to readers! • It is important to narrow the topic/focus to a major action with related elaboration that develops the story. • Why is it often difficult to focus on a topic or main event?

29. Activity • This is a writing response to a 4th grade girl’s paper on an Achievement Test. • The prompt asked to tell about a fun time with a friend. • Look to see how she managed to narrow her focus.

30. Prompt & Personal Narrative • Prompt • Narrative

31. Narrowing your topic • Look at your topic and then list all of the details that you could write about. • Was your topic too broad? • Will you have too many things to write about? • Are all of the details important?