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Story chains connect literary concepts, reinforce context clues, and even help learners predict what's coming next! Using words from the next chapter of Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons, middle schoolers craft story chains to determine...

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.

Middle schoolers read the short story "The Californian's Tale" by Mark Twain and complete related activities. They discuss vocabulary for the story and complete a vocabulary matching definition activity. They complete  writing activities...

Use short stories to teach English? Yes! Designed as a professional development opportunity for English language teachers, the ideas in this booklet can easily be adapted to advanced ESL/ELL classes.

Start off analysis of a text with a worksheet that asks pupils to complete several tasks. Class members note down a couple of characters or people and their distinguishing traits, describe the most important event, summarize the text...

Anita's iconic rooftop ode to American life in West Side Story is the focus of a lesson plan on immigration. As class members listen to "America," they follow along with printed lyrics, and discuss whether they agree with Anita's...

Bring some humor and fun to your keyboarding or language arts class! Middle and high schoolers begin a story in response to a prompt and then move from keyboard to keyboard, continuing to add to the story while the monitor is turned off....

Readers reflect on enjoyable stories they know, brainstorm criteria that make a story "good," analyze a New York Times article about innovative children's performances, re-envision classics on their own, and peer edit drafts. Use this as...

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...

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...