National Humanities Center
Teaching The Great Gatsby: A Common Core Close Reading Seminar
The 41 slides in a professional development seminar model how to use close reading techniques to examine the many layers of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In addition to passages from the novel, slides provide biographical...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Interactives: Elements of a Story
Explore the elements of a story using the well-known Cinderella story as source material. Learn about setting, character, sequence, exposition, conflict, climax, and resolution.
SMART Technologies
Smart: Identifying the Setting of a Story
In this lesson, students learn to identify the setting of a story by both where and when. A Setting quiz follows.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Elements of a Story Interactive
Explore different ingredients, or elements, that go into stories and make them so much fun. Read the story, "Cinderella," and look at all the different pieces of the tale to see how they all fit together.
Blackdog Media
Classic Reader: From the Memoirs of a Minister of France by Stanley J. Weyman
This is the full text of From the Memoirs of a Minister of France by Stanley J. Weyman. A collection of twelve short stories set in the backdrop of Henry IV's reign. These historical romances chronicle the various thrilling experiences...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: The Hound of the Baskervilles 2: The Mysterious Moor
Students examine the importance of setting in this excerpt about the moors, from Masterpiece's 2002 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. The legend of the hound that haunts the mysterious landscape of Dartmoor captured Arthur Conan...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Using a Fairy Tale to Teach the Elements of a Story
Students will hear and read different versions of a familiar fairy tale and identify what elements a story must have (character, plot, setting) for the story to be interesting and make sense. Using a Venn diagram, students will then...
HotChalk
Hot Chalk: Lesson Plans Page: Elements of a Story
This resource provides a lesson plan to teach students about the elements of a story.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Literature: Describing Setting
Short explanation of setting as a literary term. Written in the context of "What makes a good short story?" A link at the bottom of the page leads to additional information about setting.
CommonLit
Common Lit: Workers' Rights and the History of Labor Unions
CommonLit.org is a wonderful resource to use in a Language Arts classroom. Each story or article is accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. In addition, students can click on words to see...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Holt, Rinehart and Winston: Elements of Literature: Analyzing Setting [Pdf]
Use this graphic organizer for analyzing setting and its effect on the meaning of any story.
Blackdog Media
Classic Reader: The Setness of Theodosia by Lucy Maud Montgomery
The full text of the short story The Setness of Theodosia by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Register for a free account to unlock annotation tools, printing, and more.
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Smartgraphs: Graphs Tell a Story
Students match a word story to the correct set of graphs involving temperature change over time.
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Part 1 Reading: Literature: Describe a Setting
Do you know how to find the setting of a story? Learn how to find the when and where a story took place on this site.
Google
Google for Education: Writing a Story
In this activity, student storytellers write a story with each group member writing one chapter based on a set of story points. After all the members have come up with their chapters independently, the group collaborates to make the...
Other
American Journeys: The Children of Eric the Red Explore the West [Pdf]
A lengthy lesson plan about the Norse encounters with indigenous people of North America by examining two sets of stories handed down through history by Vikings. [pdf]
Read Works
Read Works: Fourth Grade: Two Lesson Unit: Setting
[Free Registration/Login Required] A two-lesson unit on setting where students use book The Three Brothers: A German Folktale by Carolyn Croll to show how the setting effects the plot of a story, and the book Even More Short and Shivery:...
Blackdog Media
Classic Reader: "The Bones of Kahekili" by Jack London
This is the text of the short story "The Bones of Kahekili" by Jack London; It is part of a collection published after Jack London's death in 1916. The story is set in Hawaii in the year 1880.
Other
Wisconsin Educational Communication Board: Into the Book
This series of videos and interactive activities provide an excellent set of resources for teaching or learning the 8 research based reading strategies provided here. After receiving your "key" you can investigate the features inside and...
Read Works
Read Works: Setting Kindergarten Unit: When (Seasons, Day, or Night)
[Free Registration/Login Required] A lesson plan, based on Look! Snow! by Kathryn O. Galbraith, in which students learn how to utilize text and picture clues to determine basic time elements of setting in a story. Students follow this...
Read Works
Read Works: Setting 1st Grade Unit
[Free Registration/Login Required] A series of three lesson plans designed to teach students to use pictures and word clues to determine the setting of fiction texts. Lessons are based on the books The Cow Who Wouldn't Come Down by Paul...
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears
The sources in this primary set uses documents, images, and music to reveal the story of Cherokee removal, which is part of a larger story known as the Trail of Tears. Includes teaching guide.
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: The Invention of the Telephone
This primary source set uses physical objects, documents, photographs, and drawings to tell the story of the invention of the telephone and its transformative impact on modern-day communication. Includes a teaching guide.
Quizlet
Quizlet: R.3 Analyze How and Why Individuals, Events, or Ideas, Develop/interact
Please align to CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.3 Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.