The complete third unit of Reading Workshop for the Secondary Classroom. Lessons, handouts, and activities provide you with everything you need to teach the unit. All lessons apply to any book your students may choose to read. All lessons are CCSS-aligned.

Unit 3: Part of a Whole—Story Elements

This unit focuses on the key elements that make up a story: setting, language, conflict, and character development. Students learn about how these elements interact with the moving parts of a plot to create dynamic text. Through in-depth analysis, students begin to understand not just what the parts of the story are but how they directly impact one another, influencing and directing the reader through the story.

Lesson Sequence

1. A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away—Gathering Details About the Setting
2. The Weighty “Where”—Why Setting Matters
3. Digging into the Drama—Establishing Conflict
4. Heartbeat of a Story—Examining Conflict
5. The Best Guess—Making Predictions
6. Over and Over and Over—How Repetition Helps Identify What Is Important
7. Symbols and Motifs—What in the World Are These Things?
8. Taking the Temperature of a Story—Examining the Developing Conflict
9. How Clear Was Your Crystal Ball?—Revisiting and Changing Predictions
10. The Before and After—How Climax and Resolution Affect Characters
11. The Big Ta-Da—Identifying Theme
12. Been There, Done That—Using New Information to Understand Previous Questions

©2019. Middle school, high school. Reproducible. PDF download, 96 pages. Adobe® Reader® required to view.

About the Author

Leslie Spurrier holds a bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University and a master's degree in Reading and Language Arts from Millersville University. She taught middle school English and reading for over seven years and lived to tell the tale. Her favorite literary character of all time is Anne Shirley, which made giving birth to a red-headed little girl all the more glorious. Leslie currently resides in Lititz, PA, with her husband and two children. When she's not voraciously devouring books of all sorts, she creates educational materials for her online business, Story Trekker, and desperately tries to keep her cat Shadow from scratching up her favorite chair.