SHISA stories

I have been trying to find a great way to teach students how to write short narratives, and this year, I think I've got it!  Thanks to this packet from Darlene Anne at Teachers Pay Teachers, I have used the acronym SHISA to help students summarize fiction stories for a couple of years.  This year, I decided to turn it around and use the acronym to help third grade students write picture books for their little buddies.

I set up a template for the books with a letter of the acronym on each page.  The students wrote and illustrated according to the letter on the page.  For example, on the first page, they introduced and drew their main character.

Here is what each letter stands for:
S - someone
H - has a problem
I - it gets worse
S - something major happens
A - and the problem goes away

The students had no problem understanding the parts of the story since we had been summarizing stories using SHISA.  Having them use the acronym to write their own stories worked well. The buddy stories are interesting and follow a basic story arc.

Here are a couple for you to read.

I love this iguana story:

And this story about a wolf named Wolfareen: