The Ultimate Personal Narrative Checklist Pack

Editing is an important part of the writing process. Sometimes, our students like to skip over this important step. Using writing checklists as part of the editing process can greatly benefit students by providing structure, focus and independence as they review their work.

Teach Starter has created this differentiated personal narrative checklist pack to help your students with the editing process. These personal narrative writing checklists help students review and refine their texts to ensure they contain the appropriate structure and language features. They can also serve as a reminder when it comes to reviewing general writing conventions like spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Some of the statements found on these personal narrative criteria checklists include:

• I introduced the event at the beginning.
• The event was something that happened to me.
• I wrote about what happened in chronological order.
• I provided personal comments about the events.
• I ended with a concluding comment.
• I used correct punctuation
• I checked my spelling.
• My sentences make sense.

The features included on each personal narrative editing checklist vary slightly, allowing you to choose the checklist that best suits your class or the abilities of individual students.

The Benefits of Using Personal Narrative Writing Checklists

Using writing checklists helps students to gradually build self-editing skills, making the writing process more interactive and enriching for young writers. Here are some ways that this checklist for personal narrative writing can support writing improvement:

• Developing Attention to Detail – This personal narrative writing checklist draws attention to smaller details (like spelling errors or clarity in ideas) that students might otherwise overlook. This focus on detail improves the readability of their writing.
• Encouraging Self-Reflection – This personal narrative checklist guides students to reflect on their writing and identify areas for improvement, such as punctuation, sentence structure or vocabulary use. This helps them develop an understanding of the process of continuous improvement.
• Promoting Goal-Setting – Using this personal narrative editing checklist, students can set specific goals for their writing, such as focusing on text structure, punctuation or descriptive language.

Download This Personal Narrative Writing Checklist Pack

This personal narrative checklist pack can be downloaded as either a black-and-white PDF or an editable Google Slides file. If you download the Google file, please note that you will be asked to make a copy to your personal drive.

This resource was created by Lindsey Phillips, a teacher in Michigan and a Teach Starter collaborator.

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