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Alabama ELA Standard: 5.LF.23.b

Summarize a story or drama, describing how the plot unfolds and how characters respond to challenges or change their thoughts and actions and citing textual evidence.

Summarize In Haiku: Power

Summarize In Haiku: Power

Can your students fit a whole story into seventeen syllables? Now do it from inside a character’s head. Then once more, following the power.

Shrinking A Summary

Shrinking A Summary

Can your students shrink a whole story down to one sentence? Every cut reveals what is truly essential.

Comparing Characters

Comparing Characters

Your young students will compare how two characters have changed in a story.

A Character’s Challenges and Changes

A Character’s Challenges and Changes

Your 1st and 2nd graders will analyze how a character responded to a challenge.

Writing Sample: A Christmas Carol (Cold)

Writing Sample: A Christmas Carol (Cold)

A passage from White Fang to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity

Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity

Anyone can say a character changed. Your students will prove it: four details from the beginning, four from the end, and the two traits those details point to.

Romeo and Juliet Summary

Romeo and Juliet Summary

Romeo and Juliet in just about five minutes.

“Much Ado About Nothing” Summary

“Much Ado About Nothing” Summary

Shakespeare’s Much Ado summarized in just five minutes!

Twelfth Night Summary

Twelfth Night Summary

An animated summary of Shakespeare’s utterly ridiculous “Twelfth Night.”

Hamlet Summary

Hamlet Summary

It’s Hamlet in just about five minutes!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Nothing could possibly go wrong with a love potion on the loose!

Writing Summaries in Haiku

Writing Summaries in Haiku

Let’s write a summary. A very short summary. With VERY strict rules.

Better Stories Part 5: Plot Structure

Better Stories Part 5: Plot Structure

Ever read a student’s story that was just event after event after event and then a very sudden ending? They lack an understanding of a plot’s structure. With the help of Finding Nemo, I break down how to set up a well-structured plot.