Cinderella is a classic love story when Cinderella is the protagonist—but what happens if a stepsister tells the story? Focus on point of view with a lesson plan about fairy tales and story elements. After reading a few familiar fairy...

If your language arts learners have a hard time determining the universal theme of a written work, use a straightforward learning exercise to help them find it. After reviewing a list of common themes, kids note the title, character,...

Appropriate for any short story, this learning exercise asks readers to identify key elements and then analyze the structure of a short story.

Here's a handy instructional activity applicable to any study of epic heroes, including those in epic poetry. Readers record examples from their text that identify the quest, the tests, helpers and companions, as well as the low...

While music lyrics are often used to teach literary elements, the richness of this resource comes from the wealth of exercises, activities, and support materials provided in the packet.  Although designed for gifted learners, the...

Address the literary elements in a piece of writing using these materials. The packet includes plenty of resources, and focuses mainly on theme, character, and point of view, with some materials for setting, symbolism, and author's...

"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...

Working in small groups, scholars look closely at a children's book to evaluate narrative techniques. Next, they complete a Children's Book Scavenger Hunt worksheet to analyze the literary elements of their selected stories. 

Intended for younger audiences, children identify the main characters, setting, problem, events, and solution in a graphic organizer.

Cover Freytag's Triangle and examine Anton Chekhov's "The Bet" in this third lesson plan in a series of fourteen based around short stories. Learners take a quiz and discuss Freytag's triangle. They apply the triangle to "The Bet" and...

Encourage scholars to retell their favorite short story or folktale, adding personal details to make it their own. After reading their book of choice several times, story tellers retell a tale verbally to their classmates. 

An activity boosts reading comprehension by challenging scholars to answer questions about a narrative tale detailing elements—plot, characters, setting, theme, problem, and solution.

Once upon a time are four words most children are familiar with when reading a fairy tale. But do they know that fairy tales are a great way to learn the literary elements of reading and writing? Use a thorough fairy tale unit...

Language arts is made up of many parts. Learners review the parts of a sentence, as well as how to make a simple sentence into a complex sentence, before examining full paragraphs and identifying the topic, body, and concluding sentence...

Making inferences and drawing conclusions is a key component to successful active reading. Encourage your class to use context clues and prior knowledge to infer different elements of a story, including the setting, plot, and character...

Test understanding of "The Inn of Lost Time" by Lensey Namoika with an assessment that includes true/false, multiple choice, vocabulary, short answer, and essay questions. The test is not entirely traditional since, for the first 10...

To gain insight into the many different types of habitats, individuals must first get to know their own. Here, scholars explore their school environment, draw a map, compare and contrast their surroundings to larger ones. They then...

Learners analyze the epic poem form and its roots in oral tradition. In this epic poetry lesson, students research the epic hero cycle and recognize the pattern of events and elements. Learners analyze the patterns embedded in the stories.

After your class has completed The Cay by Theodore Taylor, assess understanding of the plot. First, model how to fill out a plot line for your class. Next, have class members fill in the plot of The Cay on the provided story map. Invite...

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...

Track the poetic elements in any text with a guided reading worksheet. Kids note examples of consonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, repetition, rhyme, and rhythm when reading a poem or story, and provide a short explanation as...

An engaging video featuring William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is accompanied by six activities designed to reinforce vocabulary, story elements, and comprehension. Scholars match words to pictures, place events in sequential order,...

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a comic strip combines both images and words for the ultimate narrative effect. After reading The Three Little Pigs and deciphering the plot elements, elementary readers work through four...

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