Literary elements in a story are some of the major standards covered in an curriculum especially in high school but sometimes those lessons can become dry. By the time our students reach us in high school, we expect them to know about point of view or conflict or characterization. BUT and that’s a big BUT, we know that our students need a refresher without reteaching them everything. So I needed to find a way to share examples of literary techniques without doing all the work. That’s when I created a literary elements lesson that covered everything on my list of literary elements without lectures or tons of days.
If you want an easy way to teach literary elements in a story then you need to grab my Literary Elements Bundle. You have the flexibility to customize each literary element to any story or use the stories that I use in my lesson. Want to see how I am teaching literary elements? Keep on reading!
Why I’m Teaching Literary Elements First
Reason #1: We Need to Review What Are Literary Elements in a Story
After I’ve made it through my activities for the first day of class, I needed to jump right into the content of the course. I always find that short stories are a great way to engage your students without overwhelming them with long texts. Plus, you can quickly review the literary elements that the students will use again for longer novel studies and more in depth literature texts.
Reason #2: We Need to Ease Into Literary Analysis Writing
Perhaps the bigger reason why I start with literary elements in a story is because our main goal is working toward writing literary analysis. I like to teach my students the literary elements as a foundation for finding theme. Once they have found theme, they are ready to start writing literary analysis paragraphs. We can that build off these paragraphs as we transition into longer writing pieces like their first literary analysis essay.
As the expert in your classroom, you know what your students need. Maybe you want to start off the year with review. Or perhaps you want to update your current literary elements wherever they fall in the curriculum. If you were like me, you couldn’t find an easy place that explained how to teach literary elements in a story. Now that you know why I am starting my year with literary elements in a story, let’s jump into my literary elements lesson.
Literary Elements Lesson Plan
Step #1: Create a List of Literary Elements You Want to Teach
The first thing that I do is create a list of literary elements that are covered in the Common Core Standards that I want to focus on within this lesson. Here is the list of literary elements that I use:
- Plot Diagram: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.5
- Setting in a Story: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.6
- Point of View of a Story: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.6
- Conflict in the Story: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.3
- Characterization in a Short Story: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.3
- Mood and Tone: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.4
- Symbols in Literature: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2
- Author’s Style: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.4
- Themes in Lit: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2
If you want to have a visual to help students review each literary element, check out my Literary Element Posters that you can hang up in your room.
Step #2: Choose Exciting Action Packed Short Stories to Teach Literary Elements
In order to capture your reader’s attention, you want to pick stories that have a lot of action, a twist in the end of the story, or an uncomplicated story plot to teach these elements. Since this is a review unit, I only want to spend a few days teaching these concepts so I choose a few stories that allow the students to find all the literary elements easily within each text. I prefer my students to really engage with one or two valuable texts as opposed to using multiple stories to cover all the elements. Here’s the stories that I am using for my English 10: World Literature classes.
- “Apollo” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- “Dead Men’s Path” by Chinua Achebe
- “The Interlopers” by Saki
Note: Even though I am recommending these texts, please always take the time to read the stories. I always read my short stories out loud when I am choosing them because I want to make sure that my students and I will feel comfortable listening together.
Step #3: Model Finding Literary Elements with the Most Difficult Story (2 Days)
Now that we have our list and our story, we are ready to start teaching. I pick the most difficult story in my group to show as a model text. From my list, “Apollo” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is that text. This story is the longest of my three with eight pages printed and there are also some subtly more adult themes in the text as well. I believe my students can handle it very well and I allow them to guide the discussion and examples so that normally those themes and ideas are not discussed in too much depth.
We start the lesson by downloading my Google Slides presentation of Literary Elements. Students then follow a link to the story or they are able to print out a copy to mark up. I ask students to take out three color highlighters for their Color Coded Key. We will read this story three times: each time with a different purpose.
- Reading #1: Plot
- Reading #2: Literary Elements
- Reading #3: Theme
I provide a little background on the story by explaining that the story is set in Nigeria and that it is common for middle class families to have help. I also let them know that they will encounter some words that they might not recongize because they are Nigierian names or places. I ask them to underline them as we go and we can look them up after the first reading.
As I read the story, students should highlight the six elements of plot:
- Exposition
- Inciting Incident
- Rising Action
- Climax
- Falling Action
- Resolution
Once I have finished reading the story, I ask students to complete the plot diagram in their Google Slides. After five minutes, I we review the answers and I show them my plot diagram example.
Students are now ready to read the story again and work together in small groups to find examples for every technique in our list of literary elements. Students should use their second color highlighter and highlight examples as they reread the story for each element. Students will not have time to finish finding all the literary elements in one class period so I normally give them the rest of this first day and all of a second day to finish these elements.
We then review each literary element as a class to make sure students understand each literary element before having to do it on their own.
Step #4: Ease Them Into Literary Analysis Writing ( 1 Day)
Since my goal is to introduce students into writing literary analysis, we focus on theme and writing for our last day working together. I start by reviewing themes in lit with the students. Students wil then read through the story for a third time with their third color highlighter. Once they have finished finding their theme, they will create a thematic statement which will be the topic sentence of their literary analysis paragraph.
Next, I guide students through writing their first literary analysis paragraph. I use a guide and work with them to write each sentence. I require two cited examples for this paragraph. Each student will have different content but they will all follow the same structure. Students will submit their paragraph for review at the end of the class period.
Step #5: Give Students Choices (2 Days)
Now that students have finished review the literary elements with me, they will prove that they can do the same process on their own. First, students will have the choice between two stories, “Dead Men’s Path” by Chinua Achebe and “The Interlopers” by Saki.
On Day #1 of Student Choice, students will read their story on their own, mark up the text for plot and complete the plot diagram. After completing the plot diagram, students will then read their story again and search for literary elements. This is where you can customize the lesson. You can have students do one of a few things:
- Have students look for the literary elements that the class struggled with the most.
- Allow them to choose two or three literary elements that they want to find.
- Choose different literary elements for different students based on their needs or struggles.
On Day #2 of Student Choice, students will read through their short story a third time and highlight examples of a theme. Students will then create a thematic statement which will become the topic sentence of their literary analysis paragraph. Students will then complete the same process for this paragraph as they did the one the class did together. Students will submit their paragraph for a grade at the end of the day.
Note: While students are working on their own for these two days, I review each paragraph that the students wrote about “Apollo” and provide them feedback so that they can improve their writing before this second literary analysis paragraph. I will also take some time during Day #2 of Student Choice to review any writing skills that I noticed needed to be addressed after grading the first paragraphs.
Short on Time: Adjust Your Literary Elements in a Story Lesson Plan
Here are a few ways you can adjust my lesson to fit your needs:
Adjustment #1: Different Story Levels
Instead of giving students choices for the student choice days, assign stories based on the needs of your students. This way students will have a story that fits their reading level or slightly above and will be able to read and comprehend the story quickly since this is meant to be a review lesson.
Adjustment #2: Choose Fewer Literary Elements
Instead of analyzing all nine literary elements that I suggested, pick a few literary elements to review so that students are prepared for your first larger literary text. Students will then be prepared for the next text and not need so many days to review.
Adjustment #3: Remove Student Choice Days
If you truly just want a review with your students, focus on just the first three days together where you read the story as a class, review the literary elements together, and write one literary analysis paragraph instead of them repeating the process a second time.
Adjustment #4: Small Groups vs. Individual Work
Not interested in grading tons of literary analysis paragraphs? Have students work in small groups of 2-3 people so that you don’t have so much to grade. I always allow students to work alone if they want. I also allow them to choose their own groups for this activity. I warn them if any group can’t handle it, I will choose their group moving forward. Allowing students to choose their own groups shows who aligns together in the class, who might have to be separated from friends to get work done, and who might need to be encouraged to work with others when the time is right.
Here’s Some Awesome Resources for Teaching Literary Elements
Give my literary elements lesson a try and let me know what you think! I always love hearing how other high school English teachers are teaching our content. I know I can learn something from you too!
If you love my ideas for teaching literary elements and you want to have it all set up for you and ready to teach next week, I have you covered with my Literary Elements Bundle. In this bundle, I have mini lessons for every technique on my literary elements list that you can use. Feel free to mix and match or use all nine literary elements in your lesson. I can’t wait to see how you teach literary elements in a story your kiddos!
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