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.

Make the writing process a breeze for literary lovers. Scholars identify literary elements in Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. They then choose their own short story from Edgar Allan Poe and repeat the processes independently. The final...

A packet full of old-fashioned short stories could be a review activity for a reading comprehension lesson. Learners read 14 stories before answering multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blank sentences, and vocabulary exercises.

Scholars read three texts and analyze the dialogue of the characters to find examples of humor and irony that contribute to their characterization. They then walk through the writing process to create a final essay.

Story chains connect literary concepts, reinforce context clues, and even help learners predict what's coming next! Using words from the next chapter of Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons, middle schoolers craft story chains to...

"The Dinner Party" is the anchor text in a lesson designed to encourage writers to use sensory details in their stories. After brainstorming descriptive words and phrases for the five senses, class members read Mona Gardner's...

This is a fantastic collection of a wide variety of rubrics for writing, listening, and speaking! The resource contains over 14 rubrics for assessing such items as a summary, autobiographical sketch and narrative, speech, oral...

The story of Cinderella is a popular one! So much so, there are multiple versions of the story being told around the world. With this collection of activities your young readers receive background information about two versions...

Feeling conflicted? Work out those issues with a language arts lesson on internal and external conflict. Using "The Interlopers" by Saki, class members identify the conflicts between the characters before writing their own short...

After reading background information about Kate Chopin, pupils complete their shared reading of her short story, "The Story of an Hour."  Participants then consider the irony of the ending.

Three options offer young writers the opportunity to read a short story, answer questions, and write a response. A handy language arts resource focuses on reading comprehension and analyziing the story's lesson: look before you leap. 

Each one of the learners in your class has a story to tell, so help them learn the most efficient and organized way to tell their tale. A thorough unit on narrative writing addresses the writing process, grammar, story structure,...

This isn't your ordinary short story with questions; it's actually two tales in one. First, find out what happens with Ned and Rover, then switch characters to discover the what happens between Jack and Rover.

Who are we and what shapes our identities? Seventh graders work to answer this question as they learn how to write a memoir. Full of non-print resources and supplemental texts that range from fiction to non-fiction, scholars write their...

Two versions of movie trailers for the film Mary Poppins launch a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious lesson about how mood and tone impact a reader's experience of work. Using the provided list, readers identify the words that create the...

Over four weeks, fourth graders study King Arthur and the Round Table, retold by Alice M. Hadfield. Fifteen lessons take pupils through each chapter, complete word work, and the writing process to draft paragraphs, sentences, dialogue,...

Follow the format of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles with a journal-writing activity. Readers choose a character and examine the character's life and circumstances through brainstorming, research, and discussion before...

Learning how to craft a cogent argument based on a solid claim, supported with evidence and solid reasoning, is an important life skill. Teach middle schoolers about argumentative writing with a lesson asking them to analyze the claims,...

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...

It can be difficult to find the theme of a book or story if you don't know the questions to ask. Teach your kids to discern the universal theme in works of literature with a set of activities that promote critical thinking and...

Similar to a textbook, this resource includes multiple texts, plenty of explanation, lots of practice, and several graphic organizers. Use all of the materials, or pick and choose from such texts as "The Circuit," "Shoes for Hector,"...

Scholars read a short story about a girl visiting her grandmother, identify the main idea of the tale, and then write a sentence about this idea. Learners practice their phonics skills by filling in word blanks with letters to complete...

You could spend a full day discussing The Phantom of the Opera and not scratch the surface, but a set of lessons about the literary elements and themes of the musical production is a great start. Young thespians build upon the...

Take your haikus to the next level with tanka poems, another form of Japanese poetry that regulates the length and rhythm of each line by syllables. Young writers read the explanation, examples, and tips for tanka poems before writing...