A couple of sentences about Narrative Writing

I am having a great experience of working on a collaborative unit in Middle School.
Ms. Sullivan is teaching his students to write narratives and I bring an expertise as librarian.

I knew I could bring an ample of examples from classical and modern authors' works to show students how to develop real or imagined experiences or events.
I knew that students needed help with descriptive  vocabulary to illustrate characters and show their attitudes.
I knew we would review a dialog, one of the important narrative techniques  (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.3). 

It wasn't new to me that students model teacher's example and start little. The class was reminded  about three basic rules of writing a narrative:

• Know your audience

• Have a story in mind- think of a character, setting, a problem and a resolution. Leave your audience with a lesson, an idea, or image.

• Describe: show rather than tell, let the reader hear, feel, smell, taste, and see your story. Provide details.

A novel Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff was my discovery.  Students recalled the sequence of the events and could tell the story spontaneously! The novel is an anthology of descriptive vocabulary, and students use the words to characterize actions, places, objects, and emotions.

A collection of descriptive words created in Symbaloo helped students to find synonyms and compose engaging narratives.