Curated OER
What is the Setting of a Story?
First graders explore the concepts of what setting is and how it's determined in a story. They play the KidWorks program to help facilitate the setting in a story. They use resources such as a picture dictionary or word wall to find and...
Curated OER
Identifying Setting Using Evidence from the Text
Help young readers find the setting in the story. They will review what a setting is with a modeled example by the teacher. After reading The Cow Who Wouldn't Come Down by Paul Brett Johnson and completing a practice sheet, they will be...
Curated OER
The Importance Setting and Mood in Fiction
Seventh graders examine the setting in pieces of fiction. In this story analysis lesson, 7th graders investigate the setting in fictional stories and the importance it has. Students discover new vocabulary terms applying to storytelling.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Character in Place: Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” for the Common Core
How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty uses...
Curated OER
Hanging Out with Stories
Help your class listen and respond to a fictional story by creating a story structure mobile illustrating the main characters, setting, plot, problem, story events, and solution. Using a coat hanger, they will create an artistic element...
Curated OER
Writing Short Stories: The Fun Way
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...
Curated OER
Chatty Cherry Stories
Young artists will respond to reading children's literature, by engaging in original storytelling and representing their own images through the visual arts. Then they orally describe details of people, places, and things in their stories...
Curated OER
Irony in "The Gift of the Magi"
Use O. Henry's ubiquitous tale of love and poverty to explore irony. After reading the story, middle schoolers identify examples of all three kinds of irony in the story. With partners, they brainstorm original examples of irony. Then...
Curated OER
Changing Setting in a Story
Second graders explore how the setting in a story changes throughout. In this language arts lesson, 2nd graders read a story and identify the setting at various points within the story. Students describe the changes in setting.
Curated OER
Making A Story Map
Sixth graders learn to plan a story by using a story map. They analyze a detailed sample story map and answer 5 questions about it. Then, plan their own story using a story map template.
Global Oneness Project
A Day in the Life
We often see other countries depicted in movies, but getting a close look at a typical day in the life of a young person from another country isn't as common. Give your pupils such a look with a resource that helps class members explore,...
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast Two Settings in One Text
Look for the signal words! Scholars get both instruction and practice comparing and contrasting. Although it is completely scripted, it can also serve as a detailed outline. Demonstrate this as you read a passage (included) and search...
CPALMS
Analyzing Vonnegut's View of the Future and His Commentary on the Present in Harrison Bergeron
Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" engages adolescents with its theme about the dangers of complete societal equality. Learners complete a graphic organizer to track literary elements in the story, as well as an inference...
Curated OER
Noisy Nora, Studious Students: Story Elements
Alliterative adjective nicknames generate stories inspired by Rosemary Wells' book Noisy Nora (also a thematic complement to any class with children who make a ruckus to get attention). Class members explore basic story elements --...
Curated OER
A Tale of Two Stories
Students develop their classification and math skills using the stories "The Three Little Pigs" (Galdone 1970) and "Cinderella" (Grimm and Grimm 1981). They compare the two stories using venn diagrams, simple maps, and problem solving.
Curated OER
Borrowing Narrative Skills from Mr. Fletcher: Using a "Prompts in Reverse" Technique to Inspire Your Writers
Help your class find their writing voices with this lesson which uses the work of Ralph Fletcher to guide a "Prompt in Reverse" activity. Using the chapter "First Pen" from Fletcher's Marshfield Dreams, learners decipher what they...
IPDAE
Themes in Short Stories
"What is the theme of this story?" The very question can spark fear in the minds of readers and incinerate confidence. Here you will discover an exercise that shows how writers use the tools of setting, plot, conflict, and...
Education World
My Pumpkin Story
Have young pumpkin carvers use technology to create a unique pumpkin face and write a short story about the special characteristics of their pumpkin.
K20 LEARN
The Anatomy Of A Story: Story Structure
Somebody. Wanted. But. Then. Introduce your classes to the structure that supports stories with a lesson that teaches readers how to identify the four basic components writers use to craft their tales. After identifying these elements in...
Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character
Charlotte's Web: A Story About Friendship
Strengthen the bonds of friendship within your class with a reading of E.B. White's award-winning novel, Charlotte's Web. Focusing on the unique characters in the story and the relationships they develop, young readers draw from their...
Curated OER
Kamishibai Stories
Students explore kamishibai stories, Japanese stories told through illustrated picture cards, and become familiar with their form. Afterward, they develop their own illustrated kamishibai story. Students discuss the process of drawing,...
Dick Blick Art Materials
Painted Story Quilt
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.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Courage “In the Time of the Butterflies”: A Common Core Exemplar
The courage of Las Mariposas, the Mirabal sisters, is the focus of a series of activities designed to accompany a reading of In the Time of the Butterflies that ask readers to consider what it means to be courageous. Beautifully crafted...
Curated OER
Cinderella Folk Tales: Variations in Plot and Setting
Students examine plot and setting of Cinderella, and how it changes as it is translated into different cultures, discuss universal literary elements of the Cinderella story, and write narratives with original settings and plots...