D. Identify and use story literary elements to comprehend text

1. plot
2. setting
3. characters (AL COS)
4. problems/solution

Town Mouse Country Mouse - Recognizing Story Grammar
Using a Venn diagram students will verbally compare and contrast the experiences of the country mice and the town mice.

It Doesn't Have to End That Way:  Responding to Literature
This lesson challenges students to develop an ending that connects to previously given information.

Creative Problem-Solving with Ezra Jack Keats
Each day of this lesson, students listen as the teacher reads a different picture book by Ezra Jack Keats. Following the story, class discussion focuses on the problem that the main character faces and the related solution that the character chooses. An interactive bulletin board in the classroom allows students to create their own solutions to various problems that they face personally. Through daily story mapping, students compare the different stories and plots. As a culminating project, students choose their own characters, define a problem and a solution appropriate for their characters, and then write their own problem-solving stories.

Readers Theatre With Jan Brett
In this lesson, first- or second-grade students interact with the book Hedgie's Surprise by Jan Brett and create a Readers Theatre experience that is performed for other groups of students. Students make predictions about the story prior to reading, listen to the story read-aloud, and then make observations about the characters, setting, and plot postreading. This focus on the literary elements of the story leads students to create costumes, props, and sets for the final Readers Theatre performance. Although Readers Theatre does not usually employ such devices, the use of costumes and sets affords early elementary students a better understanding of the story.

Story Map Graphic Organizer:  A PDF printable story map graphic organizer

Story Board:  This graphic organizer helps students to arrange events in chronological order.  It is useful for exploration and discussion of story structure.

Suggestions for English Language Learners (ELLs):
(E/B=Entering/Beginning, D=Developing, E=Expanding) 

E/B: Respond to simple questions about literature through gestures (i.e. pointing to pictures in a story) or spoken words or phrases.
E/B: Identify sequence of story nonverbally (i.e. gestures, pictures, graphic organizers) or with key words or phrases.
E/B: Create pictures about story read aloud and relate to own experiences with pictures.
E/B: Identify basic facts and sequences through pictorial representations and simple spoken or written phrases and sentences.
E/B: Respond to simple one-step written directions that are supported visually; D: Read and respond to two-step written directions by extracting key words, phrases, and sentences for meaning; E: Read and respond to multi-step directions.
E/B: Identify main events about stories read aloud and relate to own experiences with simple sentences; D: Determine  main events from stories read aloud and use simple spoken or written sentences to describe inference; E: Paraphrase main idea, facts, and sequence of text, drawing inferences and expressing with descriptive sentences.
E/B: Create a pictorial main idea diagram as you verbalize the parts. Draw the diagram both ways, with the details "adding up" to the main idea and vice versa. Have students point to the main idea in both diagrams; D, E: Have small groups review a topic they've learned in class (i.e. Community workers). Model creating a main idea diagram for one of the workers. Then have students make a main idea diagram about another worker. Invite groups to share their diagrams with the class.
D: Locate the title page, table of contents, and chapter headings while reading.
D: Answer questions about literary elements with simple spoken and written sentences.
E: Use features of text to locate information and to support comprehension.
E: Identify, interpret, and express facts and sequence through descriptive spoken and written sentences.
 

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