Curated OER
The Princess's Point of View
Everyone wants to be part of a royal family. Let your pupils experience the privilege of royalty by rewriting the story The Frog Prince from the point of view of the princess. While the story line remains the same, perspective is bound...
Curated OER
Literature Through Silent Movies
Students watch Charlie Chaplin films and discuss film elements. They select a story written by Edgar Allen Poe to write and produce a movie of. They film scenes, edit, and create a final iMovie project.
Curated OER
Number the Stars, Lesson 3
Students consider how an author creates a feeling of suspense in a reader's mind. They analyze characters in the story. Students make a character map for Peter. They discuss how suspense unfolds in the novel Number the Stars.
Curated OER
Classic Short Stories- Locked Room Settings
Students read the short story "The Problem of Cell 13" and examine the plot devices that build suspense. In this lesson students create their own short story using the same locked room setting.
Curated OER
Short Stories: The Puzzle Pieces of Life
Students distinguish the elements of fiction in a short story. In this fiction elements lesson, students complete nine lessons of activities to learn about the elements of fiction in short stories.
Scholastic
Midnight Magic Discussion Guide
This discussion guide accompanies the fiction book Midnight Magic written by Avi, enforces story elements, inferences, and theme/plot. Have the class work on it over time, it will engage even your reluctant readers.
Curated OER
Literary Elements: Storytelling Techniques
Learners think about what makes a story interesting to read or hear. What kinds of details make a story come to life? How can a storyteller create a feeling of excitement or suspense? What kinds of characters do students like? If anyone...
Curated OER
Literature Through Silent Movies
Students participate in an engaging, alternative assessment activity: making a silent film of an Edgar Allen Poe story. This project offers them an additional way to demonstrate their mastery of the topic.
Curated OER
Helping Your Community-Sharing Stories
In this activity, students in groups will assemble a story bag, which contains objects that represent some type of story to them. Students will then practice sharing these stories in a dramatic fashion.
Teach Engineering
Bridging the Gaps
The London Bridge should not have fallen down. And here's why. After a brief history of bridges and the three main types, class members are introduce to the concepts of tension and compression, the two main forces acting upon bridges.
Curated OER
Marvelous Mysteries
Fifth graders explore mystery stories. In this reading and writing instructional activity, 5th graders complete a planning guide for an original mystery. Students use the writing process to create a mystery story.
Curated OER
Rituals, Scapegoats, and Mobs...Oh My!
One way to teach "The Lottery," a suspenseful and rich short story by Shirley Jackson.
Curated OER
Mississippi Trial, 1955: Pre-reading Strategy
Pink and Say, a picture book by Patricia Polacco, and an anticipation guide, set the stage for a reading of Mississippi Trial, 1955, Chris Crowe's novel based on the true story of the murder of Emmett Till. Instructional routines, the...
Columbus City Schools
Rocking the Cycle!
Time to rock out! Discover the "life" cycle of the average rock using an illustrative stations lab and stimulating pairs game. Roll the dice to determine your fate: will it be melting in magma or chilling out to form igneous rock? The...
Curated OER
Suspense-Around
Young scholars participate in round-robin cooperative writing groups to develop a variety of possible stories around a single prompt.
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Creating Narrative
Plot, setting, characters, and conflict are common to both drama and narrative stories. Kids create narrated tableaus that show their understanding of the plot, setting, and conflict of a story they've recently read. The lesson...
Curated OER
Introduce Vocabulary: Cross a Bridge (Hunter)
What does suspension mean? Learn this and other bridge-related vocabulary as scholars listen to Ryan Ann Hunter's nonfiction book, Cross a Bridge. This strategy can be applied to any book. Before reading, acquaint pupils with the new...
Curated OER
Discovering Language Arts-Intermediate Fiction
Explore the elements of science fiction. Students investigate the literary elements present in science fiction and write their own science fiction stories.
Ereading Worksheets
Figurative Language for Edgar Allen Poe
Are your classes weary of dreary worksheets? Are the learners nearly napping? Thrill them, fill them with delight with an interactive instructional activity that asks them to identify the figurative language Edgar Allen Poe uses to add...
Curated OER
"The Tell-Tale Heart"- It's a Matter of Point of View
How does the point of view of Poe's protagonist in "The Tell-Tale Heart" contribute to the suspenseful tone? Help your middle schoolers identify the point of view in a literary work with this lesson, which goes on to discuss the...
Penguin Books
An Educator’s Guide to Chraisma by Jeanne Ryan
Often, science fiction makes a lot of connections to real life. An educator's guide for the novel Charisma by Jeanne Ryan, has readers discuss many of the real-life issues that come in the text. A brief summary helps garner interest in...
Reed Novel Studies
The Slave Dancer: Novel Study
What are the effects of a good literary cliffhanger? Using the novel study for Paula Fox's The Slave Dancer, pupils consider why the author chose to end the first chapter with suspense. They also answer text-based questions, practice new...
Curated OER
John Singleton Copley's art
Students illustrate a story after researching John Singleton Copley's paintings. In this John Singleton Copley lesson plan, students read the background of some of his paintings and then illustrate their own story and create a flip book...
Curated OER
Anticipation Guide
Young readers consider ten questions regarding murder mystery stories. The must choose from one of five options: strongly disagree, disagree, depends, agree, or strongly agree. A sample questions is, "A murder mystery must describe the...