What a Character!

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...

Young readers bring characters to life by working in small groups to script and perform stories that contain a community concept. Detailed questions and activities are outlined for the class. Consider having your groups create...

Young writers get a jump start on story telling by selecting a plot, a setting, and multiple character cards and then use these basic elements to create a tale.

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...

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...

Alliterative adjective nicknames generate stories inspired by Rosemary Wells' book Noisy Nora (also a thematic complement to any class with children who make a ruckus to get attention). Class members explore basic story elements --...

How do a character’s feelings and actions influence the plot of a story? The interaction between character and plot is explored in this lesson that uses When Charlie McButton Lost Power to launch the discussion. Charlie’s love of...

Students examine plot and setting of Cinderella, and how it changes as it is translated into different cultures, discuss universal literary elements of the Cinderella story, and write narratives with original settings and plots...

Delve into narrative writing that puts choice in the hands of the writers. Kids pick their own characters, emotions, items, and places from a list and tie them together in the exposition. Several questions help guide the writers toward...

Young writers generate descriptive words. They use pictures of various landscapes (from books, magazines, or the Internet) and complete a story pyramid. The pyramid (included here) asks to describe the main character, the setting, and...