Getting the Story

If you're working on a unit about When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago, use these notes to guide your instruction. It lists the key characters, prominent literary themes, chain of events in the plot, and other elements from the...

This set of worksheets constitutes enough work and materials to be considered a lesson. They guide readers through a process of exploring characters and their motivations, and writing a paragraph about them. Here are seven handouts that...

"It was a dark and stormy night . . " Here's a great way to get kids started on their who-done-its—a whole packet of story starters awaits young mystery writers.

How should pupils read short stories? Set them up for this unit with an introductory lesson that goes over the main characteristics of a short story and starts learners off reading their first short story of the unit. In order to get a...

Send this "About Me" PowerPoint template home with your students to bring and present to class during the first week of school. Step-by-step instructions to create a simple autobiography is laid out withing six slides. Tip: If you would...

Ease young writers into the process of writing a story with a colorful presentation on story maps. Viewers use the provided sentence frames to craft a sample story as guided practice. They then draft their own stories to share with the...

Introduce your class to Glogster with this literary analysis instructional activity. At the end of your short story unit, they choose one literary element to apply to three short stories and make an online poster using Glogster. Samples...

Students compare two paintings, depicting urban life in America in the 1940's, answering a series of questions, then create a short story about the paintings' characters. They compare 'Nighthawks' and 'Nightlife.'

Practice story analysis in a narrative writing activity. Elementary and middle schoolers analyze a movie's characters, setting, dialogue, and theme. They use these elements and analysis to create a new story about the characters. A great...

Introduce your class to Edgar Allan Poe with a series of mostly self-guided tasks and assignments. Class members follow the list of tasks, starting by watching a video with background information and ending with a compare-and-contrast...