Writing
Personal Narrative Writing Unit
Four-Day School Week – Four-Week Outline
Week 1: Planning and Hook Sentences
Day 1: Introduction and Brainstorming
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Define a personal narrative.
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Discuss “small moment” stories.
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Brainstorm possible personal experiences.
Day 2: Choosing a Topic
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Select one meaningful experience.
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Identify the people, setting, event, and feelings.
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Narrow the topic to one specific moment.
Day 3: Planning
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Organize the story into beginning, middle, and ending.
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Place the main events in order.
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Identify why the experience was important.
Day 4: Hook Sentences
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Introduce action, dialogue, sound, and description hooks.
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Write three possible hooks.
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Select and improve the strongest hook.
Week 2: Introduction and Rough Draft
Day 1: Personal Narrative Structure
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Review the parts of a personal narrative.
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Examine a short example.
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Identify the hook, events, details, and conclusion.
Day 2: Drafting the Beginning
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Use the selected hook.
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Introduce the people and setting.
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Provide necessary background information.
Day 3: Drafting the Middle
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Write events in chronological order.
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Include actions, thoughts, and feelings.
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Add sensory details.
Day 4: Drafting the Ending
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Explain how the event ended.
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Describe what was learned or why the event mattered.
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Complete the rough draft.
Week 3: Revising, Editing, and Final Draft
Day 1: Revising
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Add missing details.
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Remove unrelated information.
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Improve organization and transitions.
Day 2: Peer Review
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Exchange narratives with a partner.
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Identify two strengths.
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Provide one suggestion for improvement.
Day 3: Editing
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Check capitalization.
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Check punctuation and spelling.
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Check grammar and complete sentences.
Day 4: Final Draft
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Write or type the corrected final draft.
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Add a title.
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Share completed narratives.
Week 4: Final Personal Narrative Writing Exercise
Day 1: Plan
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Select a new personal experience.
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Complete a beginning, middle, and ending organizer.
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Write two possible hooks.
Day 2: Rough Draft
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Select the strongest hook.
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Write the complete rough draft.
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Include details, thoughts, feelings, and transitions.
Day 3: Revise and Edit
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Improve details and organization.
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Check the ending.
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Correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar.
Day 4: Final Writing
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Complete the final personal narrative.
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Use a writing checklist.
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Submit the narrative for assessment.
Final Writing Requirements
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Focuses on one true small moment
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Begins with an interesting hook
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Includes a clear beginning, middle, and ending
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Presents events in the correct order
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Includes actions, thoughts, feelings, or sensory details
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Ends with a lesson or reflection
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Uses correct writing conventions
Reading
Little House on the Prairie
Four-Week Book Study Schedule
Schedule: Four days per week
Length: Four weeks
Culminating activity: Field trip to the Homesteader Museum in Powell, Wyoming
Essential Question
How did geography, water, resources, and community affect families settling in the American West?
Daily Routine
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Read the assigned chapters.
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Discuss important events and vocabulary.
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Complete a short reading response.
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Make one connection to Cody or Big Horn Basin history.
Teaching note: The novel takes place in Kansas during an earlier period than Cody and Powell’s development. Students should compare the experiences without treating them as identical. The book’s portrayals of Native people should also be examined as Laura’s limited perspective. The Big Horn Basin was home to Indigenous nations long before Euro-American settlement. Indian Education for All resourcescan support these discussions.
Week 1: Traveling West and Building a Home
DayReadingFocus and Local Connection
Day 1Chapters 1–2Introduce the novel. Map the Ingalls family’s journey and locate Cody and Powell. Discuss why families moved west.
Day 2Chapters 3–4Examine prairie geography, weather, and available resources. Compare the Kansas prairie with the dry Big Horn Basin.
Day 3Chapters 5–6Study how the Ingalls family builds and furnishes its home. Discuss materials early Wyoming settlers used. Begin a “Homesteader Home” diagram.
Day 4Chapters 7–8Discuss wildlife, isolation, and family safety. Compare the family’s concerns with challenges faced by early ranching and farming families around Cody.
Week 2: Meeting Basic Needs
DayReadingFocus and Local Connection
Day 1Chapters 9–10Discuss fireplaces, food preparation, tools, roofs, and floors. Compare these with early Big Horn Basin homes.
Day 2Chapters 11–12Focus on water and Native perspectives. Discuss why water was essential to settlement and introduce the Shoshone River.
Day 3Chapters 13–14Examine cattle, transportation, trade, and encounters between different groups. Connect the reading to local ranching history.
Day 4Chapters 15–16Discuss illness, medical care, fire, and emergency preparedness. Create a “Challenges Faced by Settlers” chart.
Cody’s founders organized the Shoshone Land and Irrigation Company in 1895 because agriculture in the arid basin depended on bringing water to the land. Buffalo Bill Center of the West
Week 3: Community, Conflict, and Survival
DayReadingFocus and Local Connection
Day 1Chapters 17–18Discuss travel, supplies, communication, and isolation. Compare a trip to town in the novel with travel between early Cody-area homesteads.
Day 2Chapters 19–20Examine the importance of neighbors and community cooperation. Discuss how settlers helped one another during emergencies and difficult winters.
Day 3Chapters 21–22Discuss prairie fire, environmental dangers, and survival. Compare fire, drought, wind, and winter conditions in the Big Horn Basin.
Day 4Chapters 23–24Examine Native displacement and the effects of westward settlement. Compare the book’s limited viewpoint with Native perspectives and historical evidence.
Students should understand that Crow, Shoshone, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Lakota, and other Indigenous peoples traveled, hunted, traded, and lived throughout Wyoming long before modern towns were founded. WyoHistory.org
Week 4: Comparing the Novel with Local History
DayReading or ActivityFocus and Local Connection
Day 1Chapters 25–26Finish the novel. Discuss why the Ingalls family leaves and whether their experience was successful. Write a short book reflection.
Day 2Local history studyIntroduce Buffalo Bill Cody, the founding of Cody, the Shoshone Project, Buffalo Bill Dam, irrigation canals, and the development of Powell-area homesteads.
Day 3Field-trip preparationComplete a comparison chart: Ingalls family versus Big Horn Basin homesteaders. Prepare museum questions and an artifact scavenger hunt.
Day 4Homesteader Museum field tripExamine homesteading tools, homes, transportation, family stories, agriculture, and irrigation. Complete the final museum reflection.
The Shoshone Project supplied irrigation through Buffalo Bill Dam, canals, and laterals, making farming possible across large portions of the Big Horn Basin. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Field-Trip Assignment
During the museum visit, students should find:
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One tool used inside a homestead
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One farming or irrigation tool
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One form of transportation
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One object connected to cooking or food storage
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One object a child may have used
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One item similar to something described in the novel
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One item that shows how Wyoming homesteading differed from the novel
Final Reflection
Students answer:
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What were three similarities between the Ingalls family and Big Horn Basin homesteaders?
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What were three differences?
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Why was irrigation so important to Cody and Powell?
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Which museum artifact best represented homesteader life?
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What is one thing the novel did not teach you that the museum did?
The Homesteader Museum is located at 324 East 1st Street in Powell and interprets more than 50 years of homesteading, community development, and the role of the Reclamation Act in settling the Big Horn Basin. Field-trip arrangements should be confirmed with the museum at 307-754-9481.