Pinecrest Preparatory Middle and High School
Short Story Planning Guide
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.
Vanier College
Analyzing Short Stories/Novels
Good questions can help focus readers' attention on the elements writers use to add depth to their stories. The questions on this worksheet do just that and encourage readers to think critically about a story and author's purpose.
Curated OER
Telling Stories in Art: Symbols of a Life
Through a series of activities, learners are exposed to how artists use symbolic imagery to create the narrative of a subject’s life. They study The Birth of Alexander and some manuscripts kept at J. Paul Getty Museum. They then draft...
Curated OER
Interpreting Characters, Setting, Plot, and Theme - The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Disaster
Examine story development and historical disaster with your class. Learners view a video depicting the incidents surrounding The Triangle Shirtwaist Disaster. They use graphic organizers and the Internet to gather enough information to...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 6: Introducing the Elements of Plot-Part Two
November is National Novel Writing Month, so if your young authors are embarking on this journey, be sure they understand plot elements. This collaborative lesson fits into the context of the larger NaNoWriMo project; however, the ideas...
Orlando Shakes
West Side Story: Study Guide
Hey, enough frabbajabba about that stool pigeon, Daddy-O! Using the West Side Story study guide, scholars explore the language of the play and read about its historical associations and themes. Pupils also engage in a Spectrum of...
Curated OER
Plot Development
Students identify the elements of plot and write a script with a strong plot. For this plot lesson, students identify elements of plot in examples by completing a chart and a graphic organizer. Students then create plots from...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to the Short Story
How should pupils read short stories? Set them up for this unit with an introductory lesson that goes over the main characteristics of a short story and starts learners off reading their first short story of the unit. In order to get a...
Curated OER
Character Development - Flora
Watch video clips that illustrate a character's development. Your class can watch video's about a character and her development through a life decision. They then complete a timeline activity for the story.
Curated OER
My Antonia: Story Grammar
Pupils can write down all of the major plot elements of My Antonia by Willa Cather on this straightforward worksheet. Learners note down themes, characters, the chain of events, and more.
Curated OER
Scrambled Stories
Character development, setting, and plot? Sounds like the makings of a good narrative story. Young authors read and analyze several narrative examples, and then they use what they know to pen an original composition. They work both in...
Curated OER
Creating Plays from Children's Stories
Students explain how individual elements (e.g., plot, theme, character, conflict, etc.) comprise the structure of a play. They write an original one-act play with developed characters, specific setting, conflict, and resolution.
Curated OER
Pick A Short Story
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.
Curated OER
Telling a Story
Do your class members complain they don’t know what to write about? Give them disposable cameras and ask them to take pictures of 12 things that make them happy. After the pictures are developed, they are pasted on a poster board and...
National Endowment for the Arts
Teacher's Guide: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A 10-lesson unit takes high schoolers through a novel study of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. To start, students learn about Fitzgerald's background and gain historical context that prepares them for a reading of the book. The...
Curated OER
Story Plot Terms
This literary terms handout defines introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.
Read Write Think
Book Report Alternative: Rewind the Plot!
Have you ever looked for a new way to teach an old concept? Scholars thinking about the rising action of a story in a whole new perspective. However, Book Report Alternative: Rewind the Plot! challenges readers and allows for much...
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...
Curated OER
Animation Pre-Production
Does your class love reading cartoons? Use their talents and interests to examine the process of writing a story they wish to tell through a cartoon. They develop the beginning, middle, and end of a story based on their original...
Curated OER
Same Old Story
Students relate their favorite childhood stories to their lives today. Through personal interviews, students discover the connections between their favorite stories and their own choices and characters, as well as connections to the...
Teach with Movies
Teaching Students to Write a Narrative
Encourage narrative writing with a clever exercise. Class members watch episodes from movies and describe what happened to a character, including details about the setting, plot, and characters. Writers then craft a narrative about a...
Curated OER
Twisted Tales
Experience how a story can drastically change when the point of view is altered. Young scholars first read a review of Disney's film Tarzan, focusing on how the point of view in the classic story is important. They then select...
Curated OER
Literature Study Guide: Siddhartha
Though this book report form is labeled Siddhartha, the multiple-page format would work for any novel you are reading in class. Complete with a reading schedule, a summary page, a list of generic literature response questions, and a list...
Curated OER
Elena by Diane Stanley
This story is bound to motivate your class. Learners read a story called Elena by Diane Stanley. The story is about a young woman who marries for love but is soon widowed during the Mexican Revolution. She takes her children to...