Narrative Structure

Story Structure Introduction

What is a narrative?  Simply put, narratives are stories. We are surrounded by stories every day.  Stories are a great way to learn about and understand the world around us.  Reading stories to, or with our children and talking about the stories are great ways to learn about and understand the world around us. Reading stories to, or with our children and talking about the stories are great ways to help them learn new ideas, vocabulary and concepts. But some children have trouble remembering what happened in a story or they have trouble telling stories.  How can we help them?

Have you ever noticed that stories have similar parts?  For example, stories have characters - who or what the story is about.  Stories take place somewhere. We call this the setting.  There is often a problem that really gets the story going.  When we teach children about these common story parts (in other words, the structure of a story) it helps them remember the story better and it helps them tell richer, more complete stories and telling stories builds oral language skills.

The Parts or the Structure of Stories - The Tools of Storytelling

• Characters – who or what is in the story.   It is who or what the story is about.  It can be a person, an animal or even a thing, like a robot or a car.    
• Setting -  where and/or when the story takes place.
• Take-off – a problem or event that makes the story take off or some event that really gets things going.  The take-off is an event that is unusual or unexpected.  It can be funny or scary or it can be a problem. Words like 'suddenly' or phrases like 'everything was fine until ...' can signal the take-off.  
• Feelings -  how the characters feel about the take-off or problem.  Words like 'delighted', 'amazed', frightened' or 'disappointed' point to the character's feelings. Sometimes we can guess a character's feelings simply by looking at the pictures in the book.  
• Plan – what the character decides to do when faced with the 'problem' (Keep in mind that the problem can sometimes be a happy event like a surprise birthday party.)  Words such as 'wanted' or 'decided' or 'planned' and thinking words such as 'thought' and  'knew' signal the character was making a plan.  
• Action – what the characters do in response to the 'take off' event.  Help your child identify the actions a character takes by highlighting the action words in the story.  
• Complication – things that block the character from carrying out a plan or action related to the 'take-off'.  Some stories have many complications or obstacles.  
• Landing – the result of the character's actions (e.g. Hansel and Gretel escape from the witch).   Sometimes this is called the resolution.  
• Wrap-Up – how the story ends (e.g. Hansel and Gretel find their way back home to their father).  The Wrap-Up relates to the Take-Off. It might also include comments about the character's feelings.  It could also include a statement about a lesson learned.