Setting the Scene with Paint

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Emmulate some of Faith Ringgolds famous painted story quilts in your classroom. Have your class choose a story or you choose one for the whole class to portray. They will select their favorite scene to paint onto their story quilt. What...

Creating story quilts is a great way to combine art, social studies and literature. Kids select a story, a published one or one of their own, to illustrate, paint on a canvas square, embellish, and mount on a felt backing.

A short story is only as strong as its characters, development, and conflicts. Encourage the young authors in your class to plan their stories based on the elements of narrative writing, all provided in brainstorming graphic organizers.

The metaphor of a pot of soup and a series of colorful templates remind young writers of the elements that make for a rich story. Pepper the plot with carrot/character, potato/point of view, corn/conflict, tomato/theme, and season with...

An anthology created for kindergarteners explores classic stories that have been told for generations. Young scholars listen to 10 read-alouds, answer reading comprehension questions, and practice a skill related to the text. Stories...

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...

Discover the genre of short stories with sixth graders. They discuss the characteristics of short stories from the book America Street. Then, they compare and contrast movies and television shows and chart story characteristics. Various...

Fill-out a story map to help your scholars with pre-writing. They will use a story map template to pre-write. They also organize their ideas into steps which become the foundation for their first draft. Concrete objects are brought in to...

Collective story writing is a great way to reinforce the concept of story elements and collaborative learning. Young writers discuss story elements such as, setting, character, action, climax, conclusion, foreshadowing, dialogue, and...