The Story Elements

Identify story elements with your middle schoolers. Readers will identify the setting, main characters, plot, exposition, and conflict, but best of all, they'll explain how they know each of these story elements. 

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.

Get your kids to explore a story and its elements with this activity. Designed to be used with any story, it provides an opportunity for learners to look at plot, characters, setting, theme, and point of view. 

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.

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...

Investigate the life of Mahatma Gandhi by researching non-violent lifestyles. Learners define the word ahimsa and discuss the personal characteristics that made Gandhi a peaceful warrior. They also create a poster about the story "The...

Do your young authors suffer from writer's block when they try to write short stories? Access their natural creativity with C-Gor, the writing monster! The instructional activity takes aspiring authors through a new writing process...

What better way to motivate reading than with scary stories, especially around Halloween. Using a Goosebumps series set of books, learners participate in daily reading of chapters from their book. Each day they focus on a different story...

Read and incorporate a variety of Aesop's Fables into a fable genre study with an eBook produced by the Library of Congress. The interactive eBook contains 146 fables written by Aesop and includes colorful interactive illustrations by...

Young thinkers view two narrative art tapestries and study the images included that tell a story about the Roman Emperor Constantine. As they examine the details of the tapestries, pupils use a Venn Diagram to record the similarities and...