Every Picture Tells a Story

Why is Mona Lisa smiling? What is the thinker thinking about? What lurks in the Hall of the Mountain King? Writers imagine the before, during, and after the moment captured in a work of art.

Roald Dahl’s classic World War II short story, “Beware of the Dog” is the focus of a close reading exercise that asks learners to respond to text-dependent questions with evidence drawn from the story. Participants record responses on...

Looking for interesting journal prompts? How about a series of photos? Or are you making up a story about a stranger encountered on the street? Or making up the story behind a song? This assignment sheet details five fresh ideas for...

How can reading short stories benefit people? To conclude a unit study of this genre, class members script and film a public service announcement addressing this essential question.

One of the most famous short stories, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," is the focus of this resource. Learners read the story, respond to several text-based questions, and brainstorm ideas about a question relating to the text as...

What makes a person resilient? Explore one story of a person overcoming adversity by inviting your pupils to read "The Last Leaf" by O. Henry. Pupils then respond to five discussion-style questions.

Get your writers composing their own short stories by following some or all of the ideas included here. You'll find short lessons and activities, handouts and assignment pages, sample paragraphs and sentences, and all sorts of great...

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...

Class members investigate Australian Aboriginal culture thought traditional stories and then create their own dreaming tales using specific details that create a sense of time and place.

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.