What makes a story, a story? In this lesson, students examine the elements of stories. They learn to use pre-planning strategies to set their own stories up for success... before they even start writing!

This lesson will have your students learn to compare and contrast using both a classic fairy tale and a fractured versions of a fairy tale.

Are the stories the same or different? You decide! Use this lesson with your students to practice comparing the story elements in two fictional stories written by the same author.

Your students will learn academic vocabulary and use a graphic organizer to compare and contrast two short stories. Use this as a stand-alone lesson or as an introduction to the Comparing and Contrasting Short Stories lesson plan.

Fully adaptable, this lesson can be used to to highlight African American leaders, famous women, veterans, or any other group of individuals who have acted heroically and have positively influenced our nation!

This engaging lesson teaches students about the famous author Faith Ringgold. Students will explore two pieces of literature, comparing and contrasting story elements, then write opinion pieces to illustrate which book they liked best.

This exciting lesson plan will introduce your second grade students to two different versions of the well-loved Cinderella story while also teaching them about making inferences and comparing and contrasting stories.

Use this lesson with your students to teach them to describe the differences between stories with contrasting conjunctions. This lesson can stand-alone or be used as a pre-lesson for the Finding Similarities and Differences lesson.

Use this lesson to teach your students to describe the similarities between stories with words that signal comparison. This lesson can stand-alone or be used as a pre-lesson for the The Same or Different? You Decide! lesson.

Everyone loves an intriguing introduction! Help your second graders hook their readers as they practice writing new and improved introductions to well-loved fictional stories in this fun writing lesson.

Students will use their understanding of plot, theme, and comparing and contrasting in this lesson that teaches about an award-winning African American author, Jacqueline Woodson. Students will read some of her fiction books and compare and contrast the stories. They'll also discuss what they think makes Jacqueline Woodson an award-winning author.

Teach your class about the genre of traditional literature, made up of stories from around the world that have been told for generations. In this lesson, students will read fairy tales and compare story elements in each piece of literature.

It’s time to make sentences! At the Sentence Cafe, words come together to build stories. Get ready to learn about different parts of speech such as conjunctions, possessive pronouns, articles, and more in this hands-on lesson.

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.

Do you have students who are constantly asking what, who, where, why, how, and when? It's your turn to ask now! Have them read various stories and ask them to answer these questions in this lesson.

Engage students in analysis by examining archetypes in fairy tales. Teach students to identify heroes and villains in fairy tales, examine patterns, and create their own fairy tales to express their knowledge of archetypes.

Strong narratives have clear sequences of events. Through this lesson, students plan out what will happen in their story before they start writing their own engaging narratives.

Explore a day in the life of a pencil! Your students will practice different points of view by thinking outside the box and writing as though they are something else.

Is it real or is it fantasy? This lesson introduces students to the literary concepts of realism and fantasy. Readers will practice this skill by using details in texts to distinguish the two genre elements.

Use this lesson to teach your students to identify story elements and compare them to another text's story elements. This lesson can stand alone or be used as a pre-lesson for the Comparing Texts by the Same Author lesson.

This lesson plan integrates art and reading to create a character by personifying a pumpkin. Your students will enjoy writing a story about a character that they have created!

Story elements help to bring beloved fairy tales to life in this literacy lesson. Your students will learn to identify the title, author, setting, characters, problem, and solution in a fiction text.

Good readers analyze texts by looking at similarities and differences. Use this lesson to teach your students to compare and contrast the story elements of two fiction texts.

Students will read a short fictional story and discuss why the author included certain details and words. Use this lesson to help your students navigate parts of fictional text to determine the author's purpose!

Getting hooked on a series or type of character creates reader engagement! Use this lesson to challenge your students to compare and contrast fictional texts as they find the joy in reading books by the same author.

Use this story map and your choice of short fiction passages to develop your students’ reading comprehension skills with this group reading lesson.

Start Your Engines! It's time to teach your students how to summarize fiction text as you race down Summary Raceway.

Use this lesson to introduce, review, and teach pronouns! Your students will get to practice using these words and build their reading and language skills.

This lesson challenges young learners to add dialogue to their writing. Students will love using their creativity to write personal narratives.

This lesson incorporates different learning styles to help students get a firm grasp of what a noun is and its function. It even highlights the important tie between grammar and writing.