Writing a Short Story - Weather

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.

Use short stories to teach English? Yes! Designed as a professional development opportunity for English language teachers, the ideas in this booklet can easily be adapted to advanced ESL/ELL classes.

Where does it happen? When did it happen? These are two questions that play a key role in understanding the setting of a story. The fourth and final video in a Language Arts playlist uses a song to explain how the setting connects to...

Do your young authors suffer from writer's block when they try to write short stories? Access their natural creativity with C-Gor, the writing monster! The instructional activity takes aspiring authors through a new writing process...

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....

Ernest Hemingway is one of America's great writers. After reading one (or several) of his short stories, visit this list of 24 questions relating to at least 10 of his short stories. Some of the questions are basic recall questions, and...

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...

Help your pupils track the plot of a short story with this SMART Board activity. Using the short story "The Dinner Party" by Mona Gardner (though the lesson plan would work with any other short story), they define the exposition, rising...

TV for homework? Your pupils' dreams have come true! After reading Sandra Cisneros's "Eleven," they analyze the elements of the story, particularly the plot and and climax. The lesson plan could work with any short story that you are...

Students select a short story and apply various literary elements they have used throughout the year. They deconstruct a short story according to plot, setting, characterization, and theme. Students create a PowerPoint.