Fortunately Unfortunately

📝This post, Fortunately Unfortunately by Remy Charlip, was originally published in 2017 and has been updated with new information and resources.

The first time I read Fortunately to my class, I knew it was going to be a hit. My students were hanging on every page, waiting to find out what would happen next. Every time I read “Fortunately…” they would smile. Every time I read “Unfortunately…” they would groan and immediately start predicting the next disaster. It quickly became one of my favorite mentor texts for teaching writing.

Fortunately by Remy Charlip

Readers will cheer as Ned’s luck turns from good to bad to good again, while clever illustrations tell the story of his wacky adventure and narrow escapes.

Why Kids Love Reading Fortunately

My students always loved hearing how the story twists and turns between the fortunate and unfortunate events. You could see their eyes light up with every new twist, and the giggles were contagious! This book sparks so many writing ideas.

After reading, we would talk about the pattern Remy Charlip uses throughout the story and list some of the fortunate and unfortunate events on the board. Once students understood the pattern, they were more than ready to create stories of their own.

Why I Love Teaching Fortunately Unfortunately Writing

✔️ It teaches sequence. Students quickly learn how events connect and build upon one another.

✔️ It encourages creativity. The more outrageous the fortunate and unfortunate events become, the more fun the stories are!

✔️ It helps students recognize patterns in writing. Once students understand the pattern, they can easily apply it to their own work.

✔️ It gives reluctant writers confidence. The repeated structure provides support while still allowing plenty of room for creativity.

✔️It reinforces content-area learning. I often tied the activity to our current unit of study, making it a meaningful way to review what students had learned.

While we always connected this activity to our transportation unit, the format works just as well with science, social studies, holidays, or almost any topic students are studying. 

Before students began writing independently, we always created a class story together. Since we were studying transportation, we decided to write about a hot air balloon!

Fortunately, you can see the beautiful landscape.
Unfortunately, you cannot see anything if it is cloudy.
Fortunately, a hot air balloon can travel high above the ground.
Unfortunately, it cannot go as high as an airplane.
Fortunately, a hot air balloon is powered by hot air.
Unfortunately, a hot air balloon can pop.

Writing a Unfortunately Unfortunately Book

Once students understood the pattern, it was time for the fun part — creating their own stories! To help them organize their thinking, I had them plan their ideas using pictures first. This kept the focus on the sequence of fortunate and unfortunate events rather than the mechanics of writing. After planning, students used an accordion book template to turn their ideas into finished stories. Just like Ned’s adventure in Fortunately, their stories ended with one final fortunate event.

This activity was a favorite in my classroom year after year! If you’d like to use it with your own students, you can find the Fortunately, Unfortunately Student-Created Accordion Book resource in my TpT store. It includes everything students need to plan, write, and publish their own Fortunately, Unfortunately stories.

This was always my favorite part. Even though every student was using the same pattern, no two stories were alike. We had everything from cars and trucks to helicopters, airplanes, surfboards, and hot air balloons. Their personalities always came shining through in their writing, which made sharing time so much fun. 

Years later, former students would still remember their “Fortunately, Unfortunately” books. 

In fact, both my boys still have their books from when they were in first grade!!