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.
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Short Story Elements
Learners engage in a activity that investigates the elements that are necessary in a short story. Each element is covered separately while they take notes for each part. Then the teacher points out each element while reading a short...
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Snapshots of a Short Story
First graders will be creating and filling in a graphic organizer using Kidspiration, as a pre-writing activity for their short story piece. They then use their graphic organizers to write their entire short story. Once written, the...
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Scrambled Stories II
Review story elements with your class. They will use examples from a story to develop critical-thinking questions. Then they use a graphic organizer to describe the setting, character, and plot of the story, focusing on how they...
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Plot of a Short Story (SMART Board)
Help your pupils track the plot of a short story with this SMART Board activity. Using the short story "The Dinner Party" by Mona Gardner (though the activity would work with any other short story), they define the exposition, rising...
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Elements of a Short Story (SMARTboard)
TV for homework? Your pupils' dreams have come true! After reading Sandra Cisneros's "Eleven," they analyze the elements of the story, particularly the plot and and climax. The lesson could work with any short story that you are using to...
K20 LEARN
Freedom And Restraint: Elements Of Fiction
Kate Chopin's short story, "The Story of an Hour" and John H. Young's "Our Deportment, or the Manners, Conduct, and Dress of Refined Society" offer high school juniors an opportunity to compare the role of women in the 19th century with...
PB Works
The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
There is more going on under the surface of Ernest Hemingway's work than one can glean in an initial reading. A literature resource compares the themes and structures of several of Hemingway's works before prompting class members to use...
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Illustrating the Elements of a Story
Explore the elements of a story with this two-page graphic organizer. Readers write and draw descriptions of each element, including setting, plot, conflict, rising action, climax, dialogue, and narration.
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Fiction, Poetry, and Drama Part 1
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,"...
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Who Am I?
Your budding journalists need to understand the five W's for writing a news story. They read a story, complete several graphic organizers to help them organize and write their article, and then use a self-assessment worksheet to edit and...
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Creating a Story Map Using Kidspiration
Fourth graders use computer software, Kidspiration, to create a graphic organizer detailing main characters, setting, problem, solution, and theme of their favorite short story. Students also discover how graphic organizers can help them...
Teacher's Corner
Dr. Seuss Story Map
Guide young readers through their first book report with a story map designed for a Dr. Seuss book. After your class finishes their story of choice, they list the title, characters, conflict, and other elements of literature on the book...
Scholastic
Tell Us a Tale: Teaching Students to Be Storytellers
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.
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Planning a Story: Bug Graphic Organizer
In this story planning worksheet, students fill in a graphic organizer in the shape of a bug. Students read the short prompts on the legs and arms of the bug and fill in details about what their story elements will be.
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Elements of a Short Story (SMART Board)
Seventh graders view a PowerPoint presentation about short story elements. They complete a plot diagram using a previously read short story. Students brainstorm events in the story. They discuss the difference between major and less...
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Discovering Angel Island: The Story Behind the Poems
Poems carved into the wooden walls of the Asian immigrant prisons on Angel Island provide upper elementary graders an opportunity to study not only the story behind the poems but to also focus on the figurative language employed by the...
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Writing Template
Give your writers the chance to organize their thoughts before writing a story with this graphic organizer. Simple and easy to understand, the lines provided prompt elementary learners to write the main characters, main events, and...
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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...
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Reading Short Stories
In this graphic organizer worksheet, students fill in the graphic organizer with the predictions, settings, characters, background, and more for short stories. Students complete 5 sections.
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"Rikki-tikki-tavi"
“Rikki-tikki-tavi” provides an opportunity to model for readers how to use background information to enrich understanding of a story. Class members observe animal behavior, listen to biographical background on Rudyard Kipling, study...
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Summarizing with Somebody Wanted But So
Teach your young readers how to summarize a text using a strategy called Somebody Wanted But So. Kids identify the character (Somebody), the motivation (Wanted), the conflict (But), and the resolution (So). The resource comes with...
EngageNY
End of Unit Assessment, Part 1: Text-Dependent Questions and Storyboard Draft: “You Can Do a Graphic Novel” Excerpt
Eyes on the finish line. Serving as the first part of the end of unit assessment, learners answer questions based on a text about how to write a graphic novel. Using what they've learned, they then create a storyboard about the invention...
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Plot of a Short Story (SMART Board)
Using the SMART Board, teacher reviews the elements of a short story while students follow along in their notebook. Continuing with the SMART Board, teacher introduces the definition of plot and the five parts as students take notes....