Curated OER
Episodic Writing Using Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff
Help your middle-schoolers expand their writing skills with this lesson on episodic writing, which focuses on story details, idea development, and organization. After reading "The Eighth Picture: End of Summer" from Patricia Reilly...
Curated OER
Detail Detective: Story Activity
In this story detail worksheet, students complete a graphic organizer, filling in details about a story read and what characters see, hear, smell, taste, touch and where they go.
Curated OER
Dream Catcher Story Web
A well-designed graphic organizer which should help young readers capture the important details of a story is here for you. In it, learners fill in boxes that capture the introduction, beginning, details, and conclusion of the story.
Core Knowledge Foundation
Different Lands, Similar Stories Tell It Again!™ Read-Aloud Anthology
A read-aloud anthology highlights how one story differs depending on where it comes from. Scholars listen carefully to familiar and new stories, participate in discussions, and complete word work practice. Extensions for each lesson...
Curated OER
Scrambled Stories II
Review story elements with your class. They will use examples from a story to develop critical-thinking questions. Then they use a graphic organizer to describe the setting, character, and plot of the story, focusing on how they...
EngageNY
Using Structural Elements to Determine Main Ideas and Supporting Details: “Shelter”
Does the picture tell the story? Learners continue their work in The Inuit Thought of It by creating a visual gist of pages 16 and 17. They then complete a main idea graphic organizer and discuss key supporting details.
Curated OER
Events From a Story Graphic Organizer
Here is a well-designed graphic organizer which should help your readers organize the sequence of events from any story they read. The organizer should help any pupil who is trying to piece together events from a story for a book report.
Curated OER
Story Elements that Support the Theme
Three great graphic organizers guide readers to see how the elements of plot and main idea can be charted to reveal the theme of a story. Model the process on the provided Direct Teaching Teacher Graphic Organizer using Aesop’s The...
Curated OER
Applying Ahimsa to Traditional Stories
Investigate the life of Mahatma Gandhi by researching non-violent lifestyles. Learners define the word ahimsa and discuss the personal characteristics that made Gandhi a peaceful warrior. They also create a poster about the story "The...
Curated OER
Which Story Matches the Given Theme?
Model for young learners how to determine the theme of a story. Read aloud Aesop’s The Fox and the Stork. Chart the plot and the main idea of the fable, showing class members how these elements support the theme. Fable titles for guided...
Curated OER
Same Theme, Different Story Using Fox by Margaret Wild
Middle schoolers work with themes in this instructional activity, which is based on Fox by Margaret Wild. Because the book has multiple themes, it is a great way to transition into exploring literary analysis and writing stories. A Six...
Curated OER
Discovering Angel Island: The Story Behind the Poems
Poems carved into the wooden walls of the Asian immigrant prisons on Angel Island provide upper elementary graders an opportunity to study not only the story behind the poems but to also focus on the figurative language employed by the...
Curated OER
“The Story of an Hour” Extension Activities: Teacher’s Guide and Notes
Enhance and extend instruction of "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin with one or all of these ideas. You might want to cover characterization and summary, or improve understanding of context clues and irony. You can cover any...
Novelinks
Where the Red Fern Grows: Graphic Organizer, Story Map
How do you grow a goal from a dream to reality? You make a plan! After reading chapters two and three of Where the Red Fern Grows, learners map how Billy earns his dogs by completing an organizer in pairs and then discussing answers in...
Curated OER
Story Map
Fill in the graphic organizer including the setting, characters, conflict, and climax of a story. There are 8 blanks intended to assist students in seeing the relationship between the story elements.
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 12: Story Event
Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....
Curated OER
Scrambled Stories
Character development, setting, and plot? Sounds like the makings of a good narrative story. Young authors read and analyze several narrative examples, and then they use what they know to pen an original composition. They work both in...
Curated OER
What Is the True Story of the Three Little Pigs?
Cozy up and listen to a recording of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Three Little Javelinas. Then, lead your class in a compare and contrast of the two stories by creating a Venn diagram.
Bainbridge Class
End of the Year Photo Writing Project
Close out the school year with a look back at a specific event. You provide individuals with photos of themselves, and each pupil fills out the graphic organizer here to prepare for writing a paragraph about the memory depicted in the...
Curated OER
Creating a Story Map Using Kidspiration
Fourth graders use computer software, Kidspiration, to create a graphic organizer detailing main characters, setting, problem, solution, and theme of their favorite short story. Students also discover how graphic organizers can help them...
Curated OER
Exploring Contrasting Story Elements Through Tapestry and Poetry
Young thinkers view two narrative art tapestries and study the images included that tell a story about the Roman Emperor Constantine. As they examine the details of the tapestries, pupils use a Venn Diagram to record the similarities and...
Curated OER
Using Plot Elements to Retell a Story
The stories in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street form the basis for a lesson plan on plot elements. The class examines introduction, sequence, problem, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution and identifies these...
Curated OER
Counting Up/Down Stories
Mirroring Jerry Spinelli's style in Wringer, chapter 5, pupils use the "counting up/down technique" to recall an important moment in their lives. In the book, the character is being punched, and between blows he remembers details that...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Comprehension: Narrative Text Structure, Story Pieces
An activity boosts reading comprehension by challenging scholars to answer questions about a narrative tale detailing elements—plot, characters, setting, theme, problem, and solution.