I actually really enjoyed reading this chapter (even though it obviously deals with younger children) because I found it interesting to see the developmental process that children go through in beginning to understand story structure and then become able to write their own stories and develop as writers. I found it interesting to see the most normal pattern by which children begin to learn about the development of plot and characters in narrative writing, especially the idea of understanding the actions or physical world of the characters and how that influences and/or is influenced by the conscious or mental state of the characters and their interpretations of their own actions and feelings and even those of others and the world around them (as discussed mainly on page 54).
I particularly enjoyed that McKeough, Palmer, Jarvey, and Bird give a lot of really great samples of student work. Being a high school teacher, I’m not used to analyzing (or even seeing) young children’s writing and the processes that they go through to get to where they are when I meet them. However, you may find it hard to believe (or just sad…), but many of my students are on a level even with some of the samples in this chapter, even as low as the 10-year-old like Emily’s story of the girl and her bully (or even sometimes almost as low as the 8-year-old story of the Volcano…).
I also really related to the issue discussed on pages 65-67 of children seeming to jump back in the learning process when confronted with a new element to work into their stories. The authors discuss that children struggled to keep order in the plot of their stories (which they had been able to do very well with the conjunction cards, etc. before) when asked to create more elaborate, descriptive stories. I see this a lot, and I think it makes sense because when a kid is trying to focus on one thing too hard, he/she can tend to lose another element, even if they had internalized it before. Speaking of the conjunction card idea - I actually really liked that concept, not just for younger children. I think that technique could even be used with my kids – not necessarily just with conjunctions and transitions, but with other elements of language in writing with which they have been struggling.
I actually think the part that I liked most about this chapter was the discussion of using Trickster Tales to support students’ study of writing and narrative story structure. I really think that all kids can relate to the structure of these tales, and they’re fun! I like how in using these tales and having students use the scaffolded process to create their own, the teachers and children have used graphic novels or comics, in a sense, to prepare their stories, just as we’re discussing in our other articles… 
