This lesson will help your students summarize short stories and describe how characters respond to challenges using a story map. Use this lesson as a stand-alone activity or a support lesson for the Story Mapping Group Work lesson plan.

By fourth grade, most students are familiar with story elements such as setting, characters, and plot. In this lesson, students will compare and contrast the elements in two stories with similar themes.

Use pantomime performance to drive your students to predict, question, and cite main ideas. With this dramatic lesson plan, your class will craftily capture information on a graphic organizer to boost their reading comprehension!