Curated OER
Five Elements of a Story
Here’s a graphic organizer that permits learners to chart the introduction, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution of a story. The PDF file can be customized to work with any narrataive.
Curated OER
A News Story of Your Own: Sentence and Lexical Variety
Given the two-sentence skeleton of a news story about a car theft/joy ride, budding writers create their own version of the story varying diction and sentence structure to heighten interest and complexity in their writing. Resource...
Maine Content Literacy Project
The Process of Reading vocabulary, literary elements
Cover Freytag's Triangle and examine Anton Chekhov's "The Bet" in this third lesson plan in a series of fourteen based around short stories. Learners take a quiz and discuss Freytag's triangle. They apply the triangle to "The Bet" and...
Education Oasis
Creative Writing Unit: Analyzing, Interpreting, Discussing and Writing Various Genres of African-American Literature
A six-week unit takes high schoolers through various works of African-American literature, including poems, plays, and short stories. The lesson plan format includes a week-by-week description of activities, goals, materials, and...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to Ernest Hemingway
What is a white elephant, and what does it have to do with Ernest Hemingway? Study "Hills Like White Elephants" in-depth by following the procedures outlined in this lesson, the fifth in a series of fourteen. Learners start the day with...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Faulkner's As I Lay Dying: Burying Addie's Voice
Students explore the use of voice and title in William Faulkner's, "As I Lay Dying". They identify and discuss the use of image, symbols and narrative voice in the story.
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 11: Setting
Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...
Curated OER
A Novel Ending/ Closure Activity
Students summarize a story, identify the plot structure, and create a symbol that represents the essence of the story.
College Board
2002 AP® Psychology Free-Response Questions
A child tells a story of her visit to a fire house. How does her cognitive development impact how she remembers what she saw? Scholars explore a case study and a second prompt about psychological reactions using authentic College Board...
Curated OER
Window of Words
Learners imagine that they are looking out (or in) a window with four panes and write about what they see using a variety of sentence structures. They create a paragraph about what they see looking through their window on Thanksgiving day.
Curated OER
Details and Observations IQ or the Eyes Have it
Fourth graders study Chaucer as a master of details. Then, they create a short story linking unrelated details into a logical plot with a clear setting and established characters. This lesson has some excellent worksheets attached!
Curated OER
Show Me the Story
Students examine the elements of a story, read a review of Chris Rock's new sitcom, "Everybody Hates Chris" and create original sitcom episodes based on their own lives.
American Press Institute
Introductory News Literacy
Aspiring journalists learn about media literacy, journalism, and the press. Units come complete with handouts, assignment rubrics, notes, and extension suggestions. Each unit also comes with a list of vocabulary words and learning...
Curated OER
Writing a Historical Fiction Story
What is historical fiction? After explaining the difference to your learners, it's time to give each learner a try! With your support, encourage them to research, plan, and write their own historical fiction story. Don't forget to have a...
Curated OER
Journal Writing Idea - Pets
Carve out some time for your youngsters to write in their journal. Today, they write a story about pets. They learn the value of a journal and how to keep up with it, and they enhance story development by planning their story before...
Curated OER
Mystery Writing Lesson Plans
Introduce your class to the genre of mystery. Included is a vocabulary list, a rubric, and a sample mystery story called "Lethal Lesson." There are very limited directions on what to do with these resources, so you will need to plan some...
Curated OER
Writing A Thanksgiving Day Story
Students write a Thanksgiving Day Story using some or all of the words included in the worksheet. These stories can be fiction or non-fiction (Personal Essays). They are graded on sentence structure, paragraph structure, grammar,...
Curated OER
Newspaper Stories
Students examine the structure of the newspaper. In this newspaper lesson, students look at the different types of articles about giving, sharing, and acts for the common good. They realize the types of voice that are used in the...
Curated OER
Election Day Lesson: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
Students read the story, The True Story Of The 3 Little Pigs and discuss the voting process. In this public opinion lesson plan, students review the original story of the three little pigs and then read the wolf's version of the...
Curated OER
Fantasy Stories
Students create fantasy stories. In this creative writing lesson, students write a fantasy where they can use characters that they have read about in The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Curated OER
Completing a Christmas Story
Students discuss with teacher how to complete a short story and the elements necessary: characters, settings, themes, and plots. They then use the worksheet to complete the short story.
Curated OER
A Little Mystery and Intrigue in Writing Short Detective Stories
Students read and analyze the twelve short stories in the novel "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." They create their own detective that has to solve a new kind of crime, and write and edit a short story with their original detective as...
Curated OER
Exploring Community Through Local History: Oral Stories, Landmarks and Traditions
High schoolers explore the history of their local community. In this local history lesson, students analyze primary documents to develop an understanding of the local culture and traditions of their local community.
Curated OER
A Storybook Romance: Dante's Paolo and Francesca
Students study the structure and artistry of Dante's, Divine Comedy. They examine how romantic love is interpreted in the episode of Paolo and Francesca while experiencing literary allusions.