This document provides instructions for an activity analyzing the structure of personal narratives. Students will read the short story "The Scholarship Jacket" and the beginning of "Brown Girl Dreaming" to identify the narrative structure of incident, response, and reflection. They will fill out a graphic organizer identifying these elements of each text and examining how the central incident and the author's reaction to and reflection on it move the story forward. The document outlines learning targets, success criteria, and guides students through an initial reading and discussion of "The Scholarship Jacket."

2. Exploring the Personal
Narrative
Activity 1.4 → pg. 14 in your SpringBoards
Common Formative Assessment

3. Learning Targets
➔ Analyze the structural components of a
personal narrative.
➔ Examine the central incident, response, and
reflection in a personal narrative and from the
beginning of Brown Girl Dreaming.

4. Success Criteria
● Be able to identify with text evidence the
narrative structure of incident, response,
reflection, in a graphic organizer, first from
“The Scholarship Jacket”, then, from Brown
Girl Dreaming.

5. Preview:
A personal narrative tells a story about
something that happened in the writer’s life. In
this activity, you will read a personal narrative,
analyze its structure and key ideas, and then
write your own summary of the story.

6. Metacognitive Markers

7. Setting a Purpose for Reading
➢ As you read “The Scholarship Jacket,” use
metacognitive markers to interact with the text.
➢ Circle unknown words and phrases. Try to
determine the meaning of the words by using
context clues, word parts, or a dictionary.

8. The Scholarship Jacket
1 The small Texas school that I went
to had a tradition carried out every
year during the eighth-grade
graduation: a beautiful gold and green
jacket (the school colors) was awarded
to the class valedictorian, the student
who had maintained the highest
grades for eight years. The
scholarship jacket had a big gold S on
the left front side and your name
written in gold letters on the pocket.

9. The Scholarship Jacket → Read the first paragraph
together, then read the rest independently!
About the Author:
Marta Salinas was born in
Coalinga, California, in 1949.
She studied creative writing at
the University of California at
Irvine and has published several
short stories. Her best-known
story, “The Scholarship Jacket,”
has appeared in many
anthologies and textbooks.

10. Second Read
➢ Reread the personal narrative to answer
these text-dependent questions.
➢ Write any additional questions you have
about the text in your comp books.
➢ Answer the questions in your comp books.

11. Second Read
1. Craft and Structure: What does Martha mean by
“rooted” against the wall in paragraph 4?
2. Key Ideas and Details: What can be inferred from the
conversation Martha overheard between her two
teachers?
3. Craft and Structure: Reread paragraphs 16-18.
Compare and contrast Martha’s point of view about the
scholarship jacket with her grandfather’s. Include details
from the text that reveal each character’s point of view.

12. Second Read
4. Key Ideas and Details: What makes the principal suddenly
change his mind in paragraph 30? How do you know?
5. Key Ideas and Details: Martha overhears and then
engages in several conversations in this story. How does
each conversation move the story forward?
6. Key Ideas and Details: In the last paragraph, Martha’s
grandfather reacts silently to her news about the jacket. If he
had spoken to his granddaughter, what might he have said?
What evidence in the story supports your answer?

13. Working from the Text
● A personal narrative may follow this structure:
○ Personal Narrative: story about something that
happened in the writer’s life.
○ Incident: central piece of action; the focus of the
narrative.
○ Response: the writer’s immediate emotions and actions
associated with the incident.
○ Reflection: a description that explores the significance of
the incident to the writer.

14. Working from the Text
During class discussion, use the graphic organizer to take notes on the key
parts of the “The Scholarship Jacket.” Use your metacognitive marker to help
locate textual evidence that supports your ideas.
Incident
(what happened)
Response
(the narrator’s feelings and
actions associated with the
incident)
Reflection
(the lessons the narrator
learned from this experience)

15. Common Formative Assessment
Complete the following graphic organizer for an
incident in Brown Girl Dreaming. Read to at
least page 20, then begin responding.
Incident Response Reflection