My Worst OUCH!

OUCH! Bumps, cuts, and bruises are not at all pleasant while they are occurring, but they sure can make for a great story. Plus, all students can relate to this topic because EVERYONE has had some type of ouch happen to them.

My class just wrapped up our "My Worst OUCH Story" personal narrative writing unit, and it was a huge success! We went through the entire writing process starting with brainstorming. This lead me to the depressing conclusion that I have many, many ouch stories to share, and too many of them somehow have resulted from my lack of coordination--Mom, do you remember when you told me I would grow out of that back in sixth grade?? :) I fortunately now see this little talent of mine as a positive because my plethora of incidents can now serve as the basis from which I can help spark ideas for my students. Anyway, this 3 week unit walked students through brainstorming, pre-writing using a sequencing graphic organizer, writing a lead that hooks the reader, developing sentence fluency in the rough draft, creating a concluding sentence(s), revising using a word choice menu (to really add strong verbs, interesting adjectives, specific nouns, descriptive language, and overall improve word choice), peer-revising, editing, self-evaluating, and creating a polished final product. I just uploaded this unit in its entirety to my TPT store. Click on the picture below to access it!

Also, if you want to make your students light up with enthusiasm, at the end of this unit, purchase some crazy Band-Aids for them to decorate their OUCH story with. They will LOVE it. On a side note, I had no idea how many choices there are in terms of patterns, colors, design, texture, you name it when it comes to first aid care. I have been missing out for sure. I ended up buying Band-Aids in neon colors, animal print, and super sparkles. At the end of my unit, my students suggested that I keep the extra Band-Aids that were leftover as unused in my desk drawer in case someone in our class actually got hurt. Can you believe that all of the sudden I had about 5 spontaneous paper cuts occur immediately after I accepted this suggestion? :)

One thing's for sure, there is something about a zebra printed Band-Aid that just makes any ouch feel a whole lot better. :)