De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: The Elves and the Shoemaker [Pdf]

"The Elves and the Shoemaker" is a one page, fairy tale about elves who worked all night making shoes to help the poor shoemaker. The shoemaker and his wife made clothes for the elves to thank them. It is followed by constructed-response questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it includes: determining the theme or lesson learned and underlining supporting text. This passage aligns with Common Core Anchor Reading Standard 1 requiring close reading, textual evidence, main idea, and summarizing.