There are many ways to construct a story. At school, we usually start by learning how to write narratives that consist of a beginning, middle and end, taught to students as an orientation, complication and resolution. This is a useful structure for young writers, who may then go on to experiment with the order of parts of the story.

Nursery rhymes can provide us with great examples of the components of a narrative. Some traditional nursery rhymes include Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, Jack and Jill and Little Bo Peep.

This week your challenge is to tell the story of one of your favourite nursery rhymes to a family member or friend. You must then write your chosen nursery rhyme as a short narrative with an orientation, complication and resolution. Of course we hope you use your imagination and some creativity to bring the rhyme to life!

The following example is from a Year 6 student named Jackson who took inspiration from the story of Humpty Dumpty.

There was once an egg named Humpty – people liked to call him the Californian egg roll. Humpty was a 36 year stuntman. On the 23rd of May 2005, he decided that he would perform a death defying jump over a brick wall. He arrived on his Harley Davidson Barracuda M series. The crowd went absolutely wild! They were screaming, “Egg Roll, Egg Roll, Egg Roll!!”

He revved up his engine VROOOM VROOM!

He was off. He committed a wheelie for ten seconds and the crowd went ecstatic! He reached the jump when he remembered that he had filled the bike with unleaded instead of premium!

His bike conked out and hit the brick wall at 157km per hour. The yolk went everywhere.

As a show of appreciation, the spectators cooked him into an omelette and entered him into the good food guide. Tragically, the judges gave him a 0.1 out of 100.

Jackson’s writing comes from the book Writing like a Writer by Libby Gleeson, Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA).