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Narrative Know-How
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Narrative Know-How
A Fresh Approach to Support Comprehension and Craft in the K–6 Classroom

August 2025 | 224 pages | Corwin
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Teach your students to grasp the structure of narratives with this simple, yet powerful approach! 

Teaching text structure has never been easier or more engaging. Narrative Know-How: A Fresh Approach to Support Comprehension and Craft in the K–6 Classroom equips educators with innovative tools to help students understand the structure of stories, improving both their reading comprehension and their ability to craft compelling narratives. Through his unique Mood Structures strategy, Trevor Bryan offers a simple yet powerful way for students to connect with fiction and nonfiction texts alike. Whether you're aiming to boost engagement, make complex ideas more accessible, or bring joy back to your literacy lessons, this book delivers.

Designed to help young readers and writers thrive, this resource focuses on actionable strategies and practical lessons tested in real classrooms. Teachers will gain the tools they need to develop students’ narrative comprehension, improve written expression, and foster critical thinking skills.

Offering a fresh approach to comprehension and narrative writing, this research-backed book

  • Provides a proven instructional sequence that connects reading and writing to enable students to seamlessly build comprehension and composition skills
  • Addresses key narrative elements such as mood, symbolism, and themes in both reading and writing through 20 classroom-tested lessons
  • Helps students understand narrative principles with more than 20 extensive mentor texts examples and accompanying deconstructions
  • Includes original illustrations from the award-winning author-illustrator, Jarrett Lerner, visual tools, graphic organizers and guided response sheets that enhance engagement and make the approach easy to access for every learner

Trevor Bryan’s groundbreaking instructional strategies make literacy instruction purposeful, practical, and fun. With Narrative Know-How, educators will inspire their students to think critically, write skillfully, and read with deeper insight.

 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Author
 
PART 1: Small Steps into Story
 
Introduction
Foundations of This Approach

 
 
Chapter One: Teach Text Structure with Mood Structure
Traditional Text Structure Teaching

 
A Bottom-Up Approach

 
The Solution: The Mood Structures

 
Mood Structure: A Closer Look

 
 
Chapter Two: Determining Mood as a Critical Reading Skill
How Moods Show Up in Stories

 
The Access Lenses in Action

 
 
Chapter Three: Using Mood and Mood Structure to Bolster Comprehension During Reading
What Do We Want Students to Pay Attention To?

 
Using the Three Key Questions to Set a Purpose for Reading

 
 
Chapter Four: Using the Mood Structures for Summarizing and Identifying Themes After Reading
Using Moods and Mood Structures to Lean Into Symbolism

 
Using the Terms Helpers and Harmers to Simplify Symbolism

 
 
Chapter Five: An Instructional Sequence that Connects Reading and Writing
Our Instructional Sequence

 
Clearly Connecting the Reading and Writing Connection

 
Research on Integrating Reading and Writing Instruction

 
 
PART 2: Lessons
 
Introduction
Lesson Layout

 
 
The Reading Lessons
The Very First Lesson: Checking for the Understanding of Negative and Positive Moods

 
Reading Lesson 1: Noticing Mood Structures When Reading

 
Reading Lesson 2: Look for the Helpers

 
Reading Lesson 3: Noticing Moods When They Are Directly Stated

 
Reading Lesson 4: Using the Access Lenses to Infer Moods When Moods Are Shown

 
Reading Lesson 5: Introducing the Concept of Harmers

 
Reading Lesson 6: Three Key Questions That Readers Should Always Be Asking

 
Reading Lesson 7: Making Predictions

 
Reading Lesson 8: Making Text-to-Text Connections Based on Mood or Mood Structure

 
Reading Lesson 9: Harmers Turned Helpers

 
Reading Lesson 10: Generating Themes Through Moods and the Reasons for Those Moods

 
Reading Lesson 11: Helpers and Harmers as Symbols

 
Reading Lesson 12: The Three Ingredients of Story

 
Reading Lesson 13: Using the Three Ingredients of Story to Summarize

 
Reading Lesson 14: Using the Three Ingredients of Story and the Mood Structures to Summarize

 
 
The Writing Lessons
Writing Lesson 1: Generating Workable Story Ideas

 
Writing Lesson 2: A Reading and Writing Lesson to Help Students Generate Story Ideas

 
Writing Lesson 3: Showing the Mood With the Access Lenses

 
Writing Lesson 4: Including Inner Thoughts

 
Writing Lesson 5: Using Dialogue to Help Present Moods, Reasons for the Moods, and Events

 
Four Versions of a Story

 
Teaching the Opening of “The Catch”: Version 1–4

 
 
PART 3: Starter Texts and Full-Text Deconstructions
 
Introduction
Starter Texts

 
Full-Text Deconstructions

 
Finding Your Own Resources

 
 
THE STARTER TEXTS
“Playing Outside”

 
“Reading Time”

 
“Cooper” (Five-Panel Comic)

 
“Cooper” (Six-Panel Comic)

 
The Kissing Hand

 
Mercy Watson to the Rescue

 
“One Sad Simba”

 
Henry’s Freedom Box

 
Thank You, Mr. Falker

 
Mr. Wayne’s Masterpiece

 
Stone Angel

 
Each Kindness

 
Frindle

 
“The First Day”

 
 
FULL-TEXT DECONSTRUCTIONS
The Rain Came Down

 
The Dot

 
Ish

 
“Taco Head”

 
The Great Penguin Rescue

 
“A Howlin’ Success”

 
Blank Deconstruction Form

 
 
References
 
Index
Key features
This practical book includes:
-An instructional sequence that connects reading and writing
-20 reading and writing lessons that help students engage with the structure of any narrative
-20+ mentor texts to use with your students
-Graphic organizers, rich visuals, and other classroom-ready materials that bring the Mood Structure strategy to life

For instructors

Select a Purchasing Option

eBook
ISBN: 9781071926253
Paperback
ISBN: 9781071941683
$37.95