Often I have seen teachers use sketch to stretch with informative texts, however I had the idea to use it with narratives after I asked a new arrivals student to tell me what she understood about the class novel 'James and the Giant Peach' by Roald Dahl. The teacher was reading to the class at the time so instead of answering me verbally she began to draw. She used a whole A4 piece of paper and drew the story from the start up until the chapter they were currently listening to. She used arrows between each picture to show the flow of the narrative. I was amazed as she was able to demonstrate a much more detailed understanding of the text than I had anticipated. At the time her oral language skills still needed assistance and so it was lovely to see her explain, through pictures, the narrative in such detail - detail that would not, at the time, have been possible to have been told orally.
In this activity I take the class narrative (novel) and re read the current chapter - or pre read the next chapter with my students. On the first reading they just listen.
Then I read the chapter again. This time the students have to sketch each part of the chapter as I read. I explain to the students that a 'sketch' is a quick drawing without too much detail - it is not a finished picture. I read slowly to allow them time to think and draw.
Then I have the students explain their sketch to a partner.
The partner must listen and decide whether or not the person sketching has missed any important parts. They then describe their sketch to their partner and the original person listens and points out missing elements. Missing elements are added as they are pointed out.
Then the students label their sketches with key words (which I happily spell should they need it). Following that the students use their labelled sketches to write a chapter retell.
I find this activity goes a long way towards allowing the students to fully think about the chapter and the words used in the chapter, to visualise the action, prior to writing. They have talked through their ideas and seen the ideas drawn on paper. Usually their written retells (or oral retells if that is what you want to work on with a student) are more detailed and longer.