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...
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.
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:...
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...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Writing Fix Homepage
Have you ever needed someone to help you out with your writing? This site offers help to students and teachers. The lessons and resources are organized based on the 6 Writing Traits model. An especially interesting feature of the site is...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: The Trial of Gaius Verres: An Account (79 Bc)
The records of the trial of Gaius (sometimes spelled Caius) Verres reveal--far better than any other extant source--the corruption of the last years of the Roman Republic. Through a series of orations and witnesses, Verres's prosecutor,...
Library of Congress
Loc: West Side Story: Birth of a Classic
View the online exhibit featuring photographs, documents--opening night telegraphs, letters, notes by Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein, set designs--and other items such as posters, DVD covers, and a pair of slippers worn in the...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Explain Influence of Setting on Plot Development in Literary Text
This lesson is about the relationship between setting and plot. The setting enhances the story by folding the plot into a place and time that fits perfectly with what is going on; in fact, it is often the setting that makes the action...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Setting in to Kill a Mockingbird
In this interactive instructional activity, students explore the importance of setting in literature and apply their learning to the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Students are introduced to the three main components of...
Georgia Department of Education
Ga Virtual Learning: Chaucer: Background: The Canterbury Tales
This page provides the background for Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, a series of 22 short stories from 29 pilgrims traveling from Canterbury to Kent. It begins with a prologue that sets up the frame story and introduces the characters....
Read Works
Read Works: Grade 2: Two Lesson Unit: Setting
[Free Registration/Login Required] A set of two lesson plans designed to teach students to use context clues to identify the setting and changes within it. Lessons are based on the books Bigmama's by Donald Crews and The Stories Julian...
Read Works
Read Works: Setting Kindergarten Unit: Where
[Free Registration/Login Required] Use the book Gaspard at the Seashore by Anne Gutman to teach clues students can use to determine where a story takes place. The book must be provided by the teacher, but downloadable worksheets for...