Multimodal Narrative Writing

While it may seem counter-intuitive, rather than writing first, the teacher should show students how their Thumbprint Autobiography will appear. Since this is a multimodal composition, the creation of the form takes a bit of time to form. This is where the in-depth analysis of the various grooves and elements of the students' thumbprints will pay off. Here is how the format of the composition should be created:

1. Each student should have a piece of white printer paper. Using pencil and pressing very lightly, a large oval should be drawn, taking as much of the page as possible, getting as close to all four sides as possible. This oval will serve as the border of the student's thumbprint. It is important to draw lightly, because this line will be erased later. For students who would benefit from a modification during this stage, there is a template provided on the Thumbprint Biography handout that may be printed to use or trace.

2. Once the oval is drawn, students will begin to fill it with the lines of their thumbprint. The best way to start is to the find the element on the print called "the core" (shown in the first video) and to draw that. The core is the central, "main event" of the thumbprint, and is a good place to start so that all other lines can radiate from it.

3. Advise students to find any other interesting elements of their thumbprints that stick out as unique and to draw those in next. Remind students that everyone is unique and therefore their thumbprints will look very different from each other; some students may have whorls and deltas and others may not.

4. Give students time to find all fascinating elements of their thumbprint, walking around the room and assisting where needed. During this stage, the teacher will likely be performing up-close observations of student thumbprints and helping to transfer the lines to their paper. Continually remind students to draw in pencil very lightly since the lines will be eventually erased.

5. The last step is to fill in the rest of the thumbprint with lines that will hold the writing. These lines should follow the same flow as the first shapes drawn in and repeat on top of each other. The space between the lines will vary in width, but it is best to keep them similar to the width of a sheet of notebook paper. If the space is too thick, there will not be enough room to fit the content written, and if the space is too small, there will be too much space to fill and too little room to write comfortably.

Once students have completed forming their blank thumbprint, it may be set aside. Using the Thumbprint Autobiography handout (print and copy the attached handout for students to use), students will do pre-writing for this multimodal narrative by answering both the guiding questions and generating their own.

Since a narrative tells a story and an autobiography gives information about the life of the author, all content written for this composition will tell the story of the writer. Therefore, there are guiding questions that may be considered and answered on the attached Thumbprint Autobiography handout, and also the opportunity for students to engage in the Question Generating strategy to compose questions of their own to answer.

First, on a separate sheet of paper, students should write out the answers to the guiding questions in complete sentences, providing as much information as needed to tell their story. As a homework or end of day assignment, students will go a step further and generate their own questions to answer for their narrative. For this lesson, the Question Generating strategy should work like this:

1. Give students an element of inspiration on which to focus. For this lesson, provide examples such as either guiding questions or an image of a fingerprint displayed at the front of the room.

2. Next, ask students to generate questions that pertain to their story. These should be questions that they not only would be able to answer about themselves, but would be passionate about answering. Students may start by looking for a gap in the existing guiding questions. After giving students time on their own to compose their questions, set aside time for Think-Pair-Share discussion.