book review graphic organizer 3rd grade

How to Write a Book Review: The Ultimate Guide

WHAT IS A BOOK REVIEW?

Traditionally, book reviews are evaluations of a recently published book in any genre. Usually, around the 500 to 700-word mark, they briefly describe a text’s main elements while appraising the work’s strengths and weaknesses. Published book reviews can appear in newspapers, magazines, and academic journals. They provide the reader with an overview of the book itself and indicate whether or not the reviewer would recommend the book to the reader.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A BOOK REVIEW?

There was a time when book reviews were a regular appearance in every quality newspaper and many periodicals. They were essential elements in whether or not a book would sell well. A review from a heavyweight critic could often be the deciding factor in whether a book became a bestseller or a damp squib. In the last few decades, however, the book review’s influence has waned considerably, with many potential book buyers preferring to consult customer reviews on Amazon, or sites like Goodreads, before buying. As a result, book review’s appearance in newspapers, journals, and digital media has become less frequent.

WHY BOTHER TEACHING STUDENTS TO WRITE BOOK REVIEWS AT ALL?

Even in the heyday of the book review’s influence, few students who learned the craft of writing a book review became literary critics! The real value of crafting a well-written book review for a student does not lie in their ability to impact book sales. Understanding how to produce a well-written book review helps students to:

●     Engage critically with a text

●     Critically evaluate a text

●     Respond personally to a range of different writing genres

●     Improve their own reading, writing, and thinking skills.

Not to Be Confused with a Book Report!

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BOOK REVIEW AND A BOOK REPORT?

While the terms are often used interchangeably, there are clear differences in both the purpose and the format of the two genres. Generally speaking, book reports aim to give a more detailed outline of what occurs in a book. A book report on a work of fiction will tend to give a comprehensive account of the characters, major plot lines, and themes in the book. Book reports are usually written around the K-12 age range, while book reviews tend not to be undertaken by those at the younger end of this age range due to the need for the higher-level critical skills required in writing them. At their highest expression, book reviews are written at the college level and by professional critics.

Learn how to write a book review step by step with our complete guide for students and teachers by familiarizing yourself with the structure and features.

BOOK REVIEW STRUCTURE

ANALYZE Evaluate the book with a critical mind.

THOROUGHNESS The whole is greater than the sum of all its parts. Review the book as a WHOLE.

COMPARE Where appropriate compare to similar texts and genres.

THUMBS UP OR DOWN? You are going to have to inevitably recommend or reject this book to potential readers.

BE CONSISTENT Take a stance and stick with it throughout your review.

FEATURES OF A BOOK REVIEW

PAST TENSE You are writing about a book you have already read.

EMOTIVE LANGUAGE Whatever your stance or opinion be passionate about it. Your audience will thank you for it.

VOICE Both active and passive voice are used in recounts.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF TEXTS

⭐ Make  MOVIES A MEANINGFUL PART OF YOUR CURRICULUM  with this engaging collection of tasks and tools your students will love. ⭐ All the hard work is done for you with  NO PREPARATION REQUIRED.

This collection of  21 INDEPENDENT TASKS  and  GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS  takes students beyond the hype, special effects and trailers to look at visual literacy from several perspectives offering DEEP LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES by watching a  SERIES, DOCUMENTARY, FILM, and even  VIDEO GAMES.

ELEMENTS OF A BOOK REVIEW

As with any of the writing genres we teach our students, a book review can be helpfully explained in terms of criteria. While there is much to the ‘art’ of writing, there is also, thankfully, a lot of the nuts and bolts that can be listed too. Have students consider the following elements before writing:

●     Title: Often, the title of the book review will correspond to the title of the text itself, but there may also be some examination of the title’s relevance. How does it fit into the purpose of the work as a whole? Does it convey a message or reveal larger themes explored within the work?

●     Author: Within the book review, there may be some discussion of who the author is and what they have written before, especially if it relates to the current work being reviewed. There may be some mention of the author’s style and what they are best known for. If the author has received any awards or prizes, this may also be mentioned within the body of the review.

●     Genre: A book review will identify the genre that the book belongs to, whether fiction or nonfiction, poetry, romance, science-fiction, history etc. The genre will likely tie in, too with who the intended audience for the book is and what the overall purpose of the work is.

●     Book Jacket / Cover: Often, a book’s cover will contain artwork that is worthy of comment. It may contain interesting details related to the text that contribute to, or detract from, the work as a whole.

●     Structure: The book’s structure will often be heavily informed by its genre. Have students examine how the book is organized before writing their review. Does it contain a preface from a guest editor, for example? Is it written in sections or chapters? Does it have a table of contents, index, glossary etc.? While all these details may not make it into the review itself, looking at how the book is structured may reveal some interesting aspects.

●     Publisher and Price: A book review will usually contain details of who publishes the book and its cost. A review will often provide details of where the book is available too.

BOOK REVIEW KEY ELEMENTS

As students read and engage with the work they will review, they will develop a sense of the shape their review will take. This will begin with the summary. Encourage students to take notes during the reading of the work that will help them in writing the summary that will form an essential part of their review. Aspects of the book they may wish to take notes on in a work of fiction may include:

●     Characters: Who are the main characters? What are their motivations? Are they convincingly drawn? Or are they empathetic characters?

●     Themes: What are the main themes of the work? Are there recurring motifs in the work? Is the exploration of the themes deep or surface only?

●     Style: What are the key aspects of the writer’s style? How does it fit into the wider literary world?

●     Plot: What is the story’s main catalyst? What happens in the rising action? What are the story’s subplots? 

A book review will generally begin with a short summary of the work itself. However, it is important not to give too much away, remind students – no spoilers, please! For nonfiction works, this may be a summary of the main arguments of the work, again, without giving too much detail away. In a work of fiction, a book review will often summarise up to the rising action of the piece without going beyond to reveal too much!

The summary should also provide some orientation for the reader. Given the nature of the purpose of a review, it is important that students’ consider their intended audience in the writing of their review. Readers will most likely not have read the book in question and will require some orientation. This is often achieved through introductions to the main characters, themes, primary arguments etc. This will help the reader to gauge whether or not the book is of interest to them.

Once your student has summarized the work, it is time to ‘review’ in earnest. At this point, the student should begin to detail their own opinion of the book. To do this well they should:

i. Make It Personal

Often when teaching essay writing we will talk to our students about the importance of climbing up and down the ladder of abstraction. Just as it is helpful to explore large, more abstract concepts in an essay by bringing it down to Earth, in a book review, it is important that students can relate the characters, themes, ideas etc to their own lives.

Book reviews are meant to be subjective. They are opinion pieces, and opinions grow out of our experiences of life. Encourage students to link the work they are writing about to their own personal life within the body of the review. By making this personal connection to the work, students contextualize their opinions for the readers and help them to understand whether the book will be of interest to them or not in the process.

ii. Make It Universal

Just as it is important to climb down the ladder of abstraction to show how the work relates to individual life, it is important to climb upwards on the ladder too. Students should endeavor to show how the ideas explored in the book relate to the wider world. The may be in the form of the universality of the underlying themes in a work of fiction or, for example, the international implications for arguments expressed in a work of nonfiction.

iii. Support Opinions with Evidence

A book review is a subjective piece of writing by its very nature. However, just because it is subjective does not mean that opinions do not need to be justified. Make sure students understand how to back up their opinions with various forms of evidence, for example, quotations, statistics, and the use of primary and secondary sources.

EDIT AND REVISE YOUR BOOK REVIEW

As with any writing genre, encourage students to polish things up with review and revision at the end. Encourage them to proofread and check for accurate spelling throughout, with particular attention to the author’s name, character names, publisher etc. 

It is good practice too for students to double-check their use of evidence. Are statements supported? Are the statistics used correctly? Are the quotations from the text accurate? Mistakes such as these uncorrected can do great damage to the value of a book review as they can undermine the reader’s confidence in the writer’s judgement.

The discipline of writing book reviews offers students opportunities to develop their writing skills and exercise their critical faculties. Book reviews can be valuable standalone activities or serve as a part of a series of activities engaging with a central text. They can also serve as an effective springboard into later discussion work based on the ideas and issues explored in a particular book. Though the book review does not hold the sway it once did in the mind’s of the reading public, it still serves as an effective teaching tool in our classrooms today.

Teaching Resources

Use our resources and tools to improve your student’s writing skills through proven teaching strategies.

BOOK REVIEW GRAPHIC ORGANIZER (TEMPLATE)

101 DIGITAL & PRINT GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS FOR ALL CURRICULUM AREAS

Introduce your students to 21st-century learning with this GROWING BUNDLE OF 101 EDITABLE & PRINTABLE GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS. ✌ NO PREP REQUIRED!!! ✌ Go paperless, and let your students express their knowledge and creativity through the power of technology and collaboration inside and outside the classroom with ease.

Whilst you don’t have to have a 1:1 or BYOD classroom to benefit from this bundle, it has been purpose-built to deliver through platforms such as ✔ GOOGLE CLASSROOM, ✔ OFFICE 365, ✔ or any CLOUD-BASED LEARNING PLATFORM.

Book and Movie review writing examples (Student Writing Samples)

Below are a collection of student writing samples of book reviews.  Click on the image to enlarge and explore them in greater detail.  Please take a moment to both read the movie or book review in detail but also the teacher and student guides which highlight some of the key elements of writing a text review

Please understand these student writing samples are not intended to be perfect examples for each age or grade level but a piece of writing for students and teachers to explore together to critically analyze to improve student writing skills and deepen their understanding of book review writing.

We would recommend reading the example either a year above and below, as well as the grade you are currently working with to gain a broader appreciation of this text type .

BOOK REVIEW VIDEO TUTORIALS

OTHER GREAT ARTICLES RELATED TO BOOK REVIEWS

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Graphic Organizers 101: A Guide for 3rd Grade Teachers

Are you a 3rd-grade teacher eager to discover the power of graphic organizers in enhancing your student’s reading comprehension and retention skills? Explore the potential of graphic organizers! These valuable tools can significantly enhance how your students absorb and remember information from their readings. By organizing thoughts and presenting information visually, graphic organizers make it easier for young readers to grasp essential details and concepts. Let’s discover the different types and practical uses of these valuable resources in your classroom!

Grab This FREE Reading Resource!

Graphic organizers are a fantastic tool to help 3rd-grade students better comprehend and retain information from reading. They help

• Structure thinking
• Present information visually
• Make it easier for students to remember key details

Let’s discuss a few types and how they could be effectively used:

Different Types of Graphic Organizers

Story Maps : Story maps help students understand the narrative structure of a story, including characters, settings, problem/conflict, and resolution. In a 3rd-grade classroom, after reading a story, students can fill in a story map to identify these elements. This reinforces the structure of narratives and aids in story retelling and comprehension.

Sequence of Events : Sequence charts help students identify the sequence or order of events in a text . After reading, students can fill in the events in the order they happened, enhancing their understanding of cause and effect and chronology.

Cause and Effect: These help students identify and understand cause and effect relationships in a text. They can fill in the causes and effects they find in the story to help them understand what and why something happened.

Main Idea and Key Details: This organizer helps students identify the main idea of a text and the supporting details. It helps strengthen their ability to summarize and find important information, and it helps them understand the text’s structure.

Venn Diagrams: These are excellent for comparing and contrasting. After reading two texts, students can use a Venn Diagram to identify similarities and differences. For example, they can compare two characters or two settings. This enhances their critical thinking skills and depth of understanding.

How to Use Graphic Organizers Effectively

To use these graphic organizers effectively, teachers should:

• Model how to use them first, demonstrating their purpose and how to fill them in
• Provide guided practice before expecting students to complete them independently
• Used consistently so that students get comfortable with them and understand their benefits

The use of graphic organizers should be integrated with discussions, writing activities, and other forms of assessment to provide a comprehensive approach to reading instruction.

Have you ever experienced the frustration of searching for the perfect graphic organizer for your 3rd grade reading lesson? Say goodbye to those time-consuming searches! Our 3rd Grade Reading Anchor Charts and Graphic Organizers bundle is a one-stop solution that puts an entire library of useful resources right at your fingertips. This comprehensive collection allows you to streamline your lesson planning, providing everything you need in one neatly organized package.

Instead of spending hours hunting for materials, you can now dedicate more time to what truly matters—inspiring your students with engaging reading lessons. Whether you’re a fresh-faced educator or a seasoned veteran, this bundle is a priceless addition to your teaching toolkit, taking the guesswork out of utilizing graphic organizers. Why not embrace the convenience it offers and experience the joy of having every resource you could possibly need, all in one place?

The most valuable resource that all teachers have is each other. Without collaboration our growth is limited to our own perspectives. Robert John Meehan

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Book Report Template and Book Review Activities with Graphic Organizers

Description.

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ENGAGE students in opinion writing with this FUN book report writing activity! Use differentiated book review graphic organizers to help students come up with reasons and supporting details to persuade their reader that the book they read is the BEST book ever. This works with ANY book and is perfect for read across America week!

Ideas for Using the Book Report Templates with Book Review Graphic Organizers

Students will choose their favorite book from home or at school. Students will then brainstorm, draft, plan, edit and publish a book review about 4 different reasons to support their opinion on their book report. Afterwards, students will complete a simple book report craft to add a pop of color and fun to their book review template.

Differentiating Book Report Templates with Book Review Graphic Organizers

This book review project was designed to work with 1st grade, 2nd grade and 3rd grade students. There are three different planning graphic organizers differentiated to different learning styles/grade levels. There are 3 book report templates included for different abilities. This is a fun writing project that can be taught across one week or shortened to be taught in just a day or two.

What’s Included in the Book Report Templates with Book Review Graphic Organizers:

• Teaching Guide
• Brainstorming Page
• 3 Differentiated Book Review Graphic Organizers for Planning
• 2 Differentiated Publishing Pages (for primary and intermediate writers)
• Book Report Craft Pages
• 4 Rubrics (for kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade and 3rd grade)
• Photo Examples

Please check out the preview file for an in-depth look at each page.

Looking for other opinion writing projects? Check these out below!

• What If You Had Animal Feet? Opinion Writing Project
• Hey Little Ant Opinion Writing Project
• Dog vs. Cat Opinion Writing Project
• I Wanna… Persuasive Letter Writing Activity
• Book Review Opinion Writing & Craft

Or get the year long writing bundle to review all genres here: 25 Year Long Writing Projects .

You can also connect with me for first access to my resources, giveaways and FREEBIES via: Email | Website | Instagram | Facebook | Teachers Pay Teachers

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Upper Elementary Teaching Blog

Free Digital Graphic Organizers for Grades 3-5

Graphic organizers are a great way to have students respond to texts in an organized way and can be a natural scaffold to move from simple to more complex essay or letter type responses. This post will share some free digital graphic organizers that you can use in your reading instruction. These are great to use the first weeks or months of school to help get your students used to digital graphic organizers and to help you teach your expectations.

About the Free Digital Graphic Organizers

The free digital graphic organizers I will be sharing on this post are separated into graphic organizers for fiction stories and then graphic organizers for nonfiction texts.

The graphic organizers include open-ended questions or prompts that work with many types of stories and texts, making the graphic organizers versatile and able to be used over and over with new texts.

This also allows the graphic organizers to work with any text that the student is reading on their own or that is assigned through Google Slides, Google Classroom, or any online reading program that you choose to use. 

Let’s take a look at these graphic organizers (there are NINE in all!)

Fiction Digital Graphic Organizers ● General Plot Summary ● Review – Summarize without spoilers! ● Chronological Summary (Beginning, Middle, End) ● Character, Setting, Plot Organizer ● Who, What, Where Organizer

Using the Free Digital Graphic Organizers

To complete the digital graphic organizers, you will need to assign them to your students via your online learning platform. The students will use the included text boxes to type in their responses to each section of the organizer. Need help assigning Google Slides through Google Classroom? Click here!

Here are some ideas for using these graphic organizers, with a specific focus on how to use these to support and enhance your digital reading instruction.

Supporting Digital Read Aloud Lessons

These organizers are a great way to enhance your read-aloud time. If you have Zoom meetings with students where you read a story, picture book, or novel, you can go over the graphic organizer with students and have them complete it when you are done or you can complete it as a class.

A tip to help your students if you have them complete the graphic organizers independently is to record your Zoom call and upload the recording for them. That way they can refer back to the story that you read aloud while they complete their graphic organizers.

Another option is to read a text or an article that you are then able to send in a text format to your students. This will help them reflect and reread to remember the details and events of stories or texts that you read so that they can complete their graphic organizers.

Teaching Accountability Expectations for Independent Reading

Another idea for using these graphic organizers is to get your students used to reading and being held accountable for reading in a digital instruction setting.

In the classroom, it can be a struggle to hold students accountable during independent reading , but in the digital classroom, it can be even more challenging because you are not with them. You must trust the students to read independently. These graphic organizers will allow you to include an accountability piece to their reading.

Simply assign a graphic organizer to be completed throughout the week as the students read independently.

Tip: You will find greater success if you use the graphic organizer as a class prior to assigning them to students. This will allow you to teach and model your expectations as well as give the students a model to refer back to.

To Support Digital Independent Conferences

You can also use these graphic organizers for virtual independent reading conferences. Have students complete the the graphic organizers and then use the completed graphic organizers as a springboard for your digital conferences about the texts and stories the students are reading.

You can do this through the feedback comments or audio (through in Google Slides or you can use a separate site such as Flipgrid).

Tech Tip: If you have students turn in the graphic organizers via Google Classroom before the conference, you will have to return the owner’s rights to the student for them to be able to see your comments

Collaborative Reading Work

Another option for using these is for collaborative work.

Pair up your students and assign them the same text to read. Assign students the same graphic organizer and have them complete it together.

One student can complete two boxes while the other student completes the other two boxes. Or they might choose to work together to complete and each add details to all sections of the organizer.

You can allow the partners to decide how to complete the organizers or you can set those expectations for them. Just make sure that you have set clear expectations for partner and collaborative work through Google Slides.

Listening Center – Audio Reading Extension

If you really want to scaffold and support students who may not be reading at grade level independently, you can have them listen to a story read aloud or even watch a short cartoon like a Pixar short and then have them complete the graphic organizer.

This is a great way to scaffold students who are not ready to do both the reading and the completing of the graphic organizer.

Want digital reading intervention passages with audio included? Click here to check my 4th and 5th Grade Reading Intervention Passages (written at a 2nd/3rd grade level).

***Grab the FREE Digital Graphic Organizers HERE

Click here or on the image to download the FREE digital graphic organizers. The file will open up as a PDF and the link to digital access can be found on page 2.

Want MORE Free Digital Reading Activities and Resources?

If you want even more digital reading activities to use with your students, I have just what you need! I created a HUGE (and free) reading resource for reviewing Story Elements and introducing students to digital reading instruction.

Click here or on the image below to read more about this resource and sign up to have it sent straight to your inbox.

Want EVEN MORE Digital Reading Activities and Resources?

If you are in need of even more digital reading activities than the free ones shared on this post, check out this one-stop reading resource for 4th and 5th grade reading teachers. Each resource includes (or will include by the end of 2020) digital versions for digital reading instruction.

There are teaching posters, reading graphic organizers, passages to teach with, task cards, and more!

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4th and 5th Grade Reading Resources

Share the knowledge, reader interactions, 11 comments.

September 2, 2020 at 11:51 am

THANK YOU!!

September 2, 2020 at 2:25 pm

I will be following you on TPT! Great blog. Thank you for all you do!

September 2, 2020 at 5:52 pm

All of your Digital Resources have been so incredibly useful this year. I am loving ALL of your products. I’ve been using my purchases from your store faithfully! Keep ’em coming 🙂 Aloha from Hawaii!

September 2, 2020 at 11:25 pm

Love your resources!!!! Thank you!!

September 3, 2020 at 8:16 pm

THANK YOU~ I love your resources and sharing with us free treats is wonderful. May wonderful things happen to you!

September 21, 2020 at 11:55 am

Are you the same Silvia Zapiain who worked at the AIM so many years ago? If so….. greeting form Monterrey! Julieta Negrete here!!

October 19, 2020 at 2:05 am

Question about slides. You always have such beautiful ones. Have you created a tutorial on how to have a slide deck open to 1 full slide (not seeing the deck on the side and allows kids to type like these?

September 24, 2020 at 9:59 am

Really great and easy to use slides. Thank you!

March 4, 2021 at 4:38 pm

Unfurtunately we are using Teams and I’m not an internet native. How can I use your products with Teams?

January 4, 2022 at 10:20 am

I’m finding the Grades 4-5 Reviewing Story Elements very helpful. For the story elements sort on Google Slides I don’t see where the labels are to drag and drop.

February 3, 2022 at 10:45 am

I love your templates. Is there a way to modify them? I would like to use them for my Economics class. I am willing to donate to you for your efforts.

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I’m Jennifer Findley: a teacher, mother, and avid reader. I believe that with the right resources, mindset, and strategies, all students can achieve at high levels and learn to love learning. My goal is to provide resources and strategies to inspire you and help make this belief a reality for your students.

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Not So Wimpy Teacher

The Not So WImpy Teacher creates resources for busy teachers in grades 2-5 who are looking to deliver engaging and meaningful lessons without overwhelm and chaos.

Book Club Digital and Printable Graphic Organizers for any Nonfiction Text

Grade Level: 2nd Grade , 3rd Grade , 4th Grade , 5th Grade

Whether you’re teaching remotely or in person, book clubs , or l iterature circles , are a fun way to differentiate and get your class reading engaging text! Use these book club graphic organizers to help your students practice various reading standards.

More about this resource

Description:.

Best of all, you can use these with ANY book!  That means you can use them over and over again with any book your students read—saving you time and money.

There are 24   digital and printable graphic organizers included in the file.

This resource is appropriate for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th grades.

How to Use the Graphic Organizers:

In your physical classroom or Google classroom, there are numerous ways that this product can be used. Give a mini lesson covering your weekly skill. When your students come to meet with you during guided reading groups, read a chapter from their book club books. If you’re teaching virtually, you can meet in small groups with your students online for book clubs. Either way, you can work together to fill out a graphic organizer that covers the skill you are working on for the week. The next time that you meet with your students, read another chapter and they can complete the very same graphic organizer on their own. You’ll see great success because they have already had direct modeling. I do not assign my kids different jobs for book clubs. Instead, every student is working on our weekly skill and getting the practice that they need.

These graphic organizers can also be used in independent reading centers or as homework assignments.

For the printable graphic organizers , you can prepare the materials in several ways. You can choose the skills and graphic organizers ahead of time for the entire novel. Then, you can make packets for each student with the printables that they will need. If you use reading notebooks, you can have students glue the graphic organizers in their notebooks. The printables can also be given one at a time as you cover a skill.

For the digital graphic organizers , you can make a copy of the slide show and choose which graphic organizers your students will be using while reading the novel. You can delete any slides you will not need. You can also just assign one graphic organizer at a time if you wish.

Differentiation:

It’s easy to provide differentiated learning in Book Clubs. Just assign different books or google slides according to each club’s reading level. Voilà!

Skills covered include:

• Know-Wonder-Learned
• Vocabulary/ Context Clues
• Text Features
• Cause and Effect
• Point of View
• Asking Questions
• Book Review (Writing your opinion.)

Many of the graphic organizers include versions for writing about the entire book and versions for writing about one chapter.

Also Included:

• Ideas for running book clubs
• Directions for preparing the materials
• 2 Covers for book club packets
• Charts for organizing book club assignments
• Several higher order thinking tasks (such as redesigning the book cover and making a timeline)

Get this in a money-saving bundle:

Book Club Fiction and Nonfiction Bundle

Check out my Fiction version:

Book Club Digital and Printable Graphic Organizers for Any Fiction Text

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Teaching Plot to 3rd Graders: 9 Tips to Help Them Master It

Forty percent of my students failed the plot assessment.

I stared wide-eyed at the grade book with a lump in my throat, fighting back the tears. I had taught the story elements to these 3rd graders all week. What happened?

After some reflection, I realized I had made a fatal mistake.

I had taught the story elements in isolation.

Sure, they could name the parts of the plot structure and could even identify them in the stories we read, but they had virtually no understanding of how they all fit together or their significance to the development of the plot. I needed to make some big changes in my approach to teaching plot to 3rd graders.

Thankfully, the kids had much better scores once I implemented these changes.

And every class I’ve taught since owes a debt of gratitude to those first 40 third-grade guinea pigs I taught back in 2011. Poor things. We all learned a lot that year.

Use these tips to learn from my mistakes and help your students achieve mastery – without you needing to reteach an entire week of instruction.

1. Buckle Up to Ride the Plot Roller Coaster

How much longer until lunch? When’s recess? Why’s the man across the street mowing the lawn with his shirt off?

We’ve got a lot to compete with when it comes to the things weighing on the minds of eight and nine-year-olds. The introduction to our plot lesson needs to grab their attention quickly or we’ll lose them to whatever’s going on outside the window.

Feed their desire for excitement by leaning into the plot roller coaster.

This relatable and exhilarating adventure helps paint a picture of how all the pieces work together to create one magnificent experience.

The plot roller coaster is such a simple and engaging introduction when teaching plot to 3rd graders.

Here’s how you connect it to plot:

Pretend you’re all going on a roller coaster ride. Go through the ride piece by piece with them. Don’t be afraid to ham it up. The more you get into it, the more engaged they’ll be.

• Setting: First, describe your surroundings – the cold metal of the seat against your skin, the clicking sound of the seat belt, the view of the giant track reaching into the sky.
• Characters: Then talk about looking around at the other people on the ride with you, their excited & terrified faces, their trembling voices as they talk to those around them.
• Rising Action & Problem: As the roller coaster rolls forward, you realize how high the track rises and a bead of sweat drips down your forehead. The tension builds. Your heart pounds harder with every click of the cars. The people around you are anxiously moaning and groaning. How much further is the top?
• Climax: You reach the top of the roller coaster, and for a moment your car seems to come to a stop, allowing you to look for the end of the roller coaster. Your heart still pounding, you think, “Here we gooo!” This is the turning point.
• Falling Action & Resolution: You feel the tension release as the roller coaster goes downhill. You put your hands in the air and enjoy the ride down. You realize the roller coaster will come to an end and you’re going to survive.
• Conclusion: Finally, the roller coaster comes to a stop at the bottom. The seat belt releases, and the ride ends.
• Pull it all together: That roller coaster wouldn’t work without the giant rise before the fall. Just like all those pieces create the full experience of being on a roller coaster, all the story elements work together to build the plot structure. You can’t have a resolution without a problem.

An Important Note About the Shape of the Plot Roller Coaster:

Give some thought to the shape of your roller coaster. Mental models help students understand and remember important skills and topics, but they can do harm if they send the wrong message.

The symmetrical witch’s hat and/or roller coaster shape gives students the wrong picture of how the plot develops throughout the story. The climax is almost never in the middle. Rather, the author spends a great deal of time developing rich characters and building their problem(s) with mounting tension, leading to the inevitable moment when the tension breaks and a resolution is born.

Shaping the mental model correctly gives your students a clearer picture of how the story elements work together to develop the plot.

2. Let Hollywood Lend a Helping Hand

No, I don’t mean show movies during class time. Don’t we all wish?

Instead, map out or discuss the story structure of a movie your kids have already seen. This will help solidify their understanding of the elements of the plot.

Plus, they’ll be crazy engaged. Anyone who’s ever listened to the “and thens” of an eight-year-old’s retelling of Moana can tell you kids love talking about movies they’ve seen.

Not sure if there’s a movie all your students have seen?

Use a picture book you’ve previously read as a class. The point is to use a story the kids already understand.

I know, you’re short on time, and this doesn’t involve actually reading a text. It may seem like an added step that wastes time.

But it’s not. Hear me out.

Mapping out the plot structure of a story your students already know helps them focus on understanding the concept since it takes away the stress of having to read and understand the text first. Solidifying this understanding helps students identify and analyze the plot structure of texts they will read in the future.

It also takes less than five minutes.

Trust me, those are five minutes well spent because they help prevent the days of reteaching that’ll be necessary if you don’t help your students develop a solid understanding of the story elements and plot structure.

3. Set Students Up for Success with This Effortless Step

Knowing the dress code at a social event helps you walk into the room more confidently. Knowing the dietary needs of your dinner guests helps you find a recipe you can be certain will please everyone. And knowing what you’re looking for before you read something helps you locate the answers more easily.

Like adults, kids go into things more confidently and find themselves more capable when they know what to expect. We can set them up for success by helping them predict the genre and anticipate the structure of the texts we read.

After you teach the story elements and plot structure, you can begin teaching the students to mentally prepare to read fiction.

Before we read anything in our classroom, we preview the text and predict the genre. Once we identify the text as a fiction story, we “prepare a space in our brains” for the story.

I ask the students what kinds of things they can expect to find when reading the story. I usually hear a few of the plot elements shouted out and use those pieces to lead them to the plot structure. We then physically move our hands in front of our brains to form the (realistic) shape of the plot structure.

This helps the students prepare to analyze how the author uses the story elements and events to develop the plot.

4. My Favorite Tool for Teaching Plot to 3rd Graders

The walls are covered in anchor charts. There isn’t room for one more to be put up. And your students aren’t using them as a reference the way you want. They’ve become wallpaper .

Poorly drawn wallpaper. (I’m no artist.)

Now, of course, I’m not suggesting we do away with anchor charts. They serve an important purpose in our instruction.

And they best serve that purpose when we make them interactive.

Enter the Reading Interactive Notebook –

My favorite tool for making anchor charts interactive and reading lessons engaging.

Plot Interactive Anchor Charts

I love having the kids can create their own mini anchor charts in their interactive notebooks along with me. It also serves as a resource the students can continue to reference as needed throughout the year. – No more wallpaper.

I still make the larger one.

But it doesn’t have to be the size of the full chart paper since the kids won’t have to strain their eyes (and probably their necks) to reference it. Instead, they’ll have their own at their fingertips. And if they do want to look at the one on the wall, it will mean more to them since they shared the experience of creating it.

Here’s what I do:

• I plan out what I want my anchor chart to look like ahead of time.
• Then I create an outline of sorts, leaving keywords and big ideas blank for the kids to fill in as we create our charts. Minimize the amount of writing/copying they’ll need to do so this doesn’t end up taking forever.
• Most times, we use this framework with a mentor text during the lesson. Sometimes it serves as more of a notetaking page for them to learn and understand the academic vocabulary being introduced. Take the plot structure page shown on the left. This page can be used for both purposes.

Practice with Interactive Notebooks

Using interactive notebooks to practice identifying the story elements and examining their importance and influence on the plot gives students a central place to share and store their thinking.

The best interactive notebook pages create valuable visual representations and involve memorable activities. Incorporating interactive notebooks takes careful selection in the pages you’ll use. They shouldn’t be a cute, but pointless “craftivity” or involve a bunch of cutting and pasting of unrelated clipart. That’s a waste of time. And I am not about wasted time in the classroom.

These interactive notebook pages for fiction help you get your kids thinking about how the story elements work together to develop the plot. They can be used throughout your fiction unit, from how the setting influences the plot to how character relationships change throughout the story.

5. The Lesson That Made the Most Impact with My 3rd Graders

After they’ve mastered sequencing, help them dig deeper by analyzing how those main events influence each other and the plot structure.

This is probably the lesson that made the most impact on my students’ understanding. A hands-on activity, perfect for your observation.

And, it’s surprisingly simple.

• Start with sentence strips of main events from the story arranged in sequential order. Bonus points if they’re the same one you used during your sequencing lesson.
• Remove an event and ask, “How would the story be different if this event never happened?” They’ll easily see how all the following events depended on the missing one.
• Then discuss how that event led to the problem, resolution, lesson, etc. Explain how this shows the event’s influence on the plot.
• Replace the event in the sequence and remove a different one. This time have the students discuss how that event infuences the plot with their partner or table group.
• Come back together as a class to share their thinking and review how author’s use the plot elements and events to build the plot structure of their stories.

6. Get Your Students to Share and Expand Their Thinking

Reading responses encourage higher-order thinking and give students a place to comfortably and confidently share their thinking about the text. You can provide differentiation with varying levels of text and questioning.

Use these reading response prompts for read alouds, buddy reading, and independent reading. Whether you choose to house these responses in reading response journals or use them as exit tickets, you’ll get good insight into your student’s level of understanding.

Grab the free printable with plot structure questions for reading responses. I’ve separated them into easy-to-cut strips to be glued into your students’ notebooks for your convenience.

You can also retype the questions on post-its for a quick check at the guided reading table. See how to print on post-it notes in this video from We Are Teachers.

7. Learn from My Biggest Mistake with Graphic Organizers

One of my biggest mistakes that first year? Not selecting an appropriate graphic organizer. I copied a flipbook that I found with a quick Pinterest search because it had all the plot elements stored in an organized way. More honestly, I thought it was cute.

So, my students and I went on our merry way making our brightly colored flipbook, recording the story elements as we read. And they did a great job! Bursting with pride, I hung them all up on the wall outside our classroom.

Those perfectly created flipbooks caused the biggest punch to the gut when I saw their scores for the weekly assessment. How could the same kids who showed their understanding so well do so poorly on the test?

I pulled one of my higher readers who failed the test aside and quizzed him. After only a few questions, I realized what went wrong for him. He could tell me all the story elements from the passage but didn’t even understand the question when I asked about how an event influenced the plot.

He didn’t get the bigger picture because I hadn’t taught him how to see it.

The flipbooks and I taught the kids how to identify the pieces of the plot, not how they all fit together. Not to say flipbooks are always bad or that I hate them or anything. They just didn’t serve the right purpose for teaching plot to 3rd graders.

I saw the best results with the graphic organizer shaped like the roller coaster from the introduction lesson. It breaks apart the elements of the plot into smaller pieces while still illustrating how they all fit together. So simple, yet so effective.

Whatever graphic organizer you choose, be sure it visually represents the concept and isn’t too busy or overwhelming.

8. Increase Engagement from Everyone in a Class with a Wide Range of Reading Abilities

I love using wordless picture books to build literacy and comprehension skills. They’re a great tool for talking about plot structure with reluctant and struggling readers because they’re accessible to everyone. Wordless picture books increase engagement and bring all your students into the discussion.

My favorite wordless picture books for teaching plot structure are Journey , Quest , and Return all by Aaron Becker. We’ve had some incredible discussions about how the events build on each other and develop the story with these books. And since they’re accessible to everyone, everyone gets involved in the discussion.

Never read a wordless picture book with your students? Check out Aaron Becker’s Wordless Picture Book Guide for some great tips. You can find it on his website here .

Side note: Wordless picture books are also perfect books to put in your stations after you’ve read them as a class!

9. Help Them Develop the Plot in Their Own Writing

Remember the graphic organizer I mentioned earlier? Use it as a planning page for your students’ fiction writing. Writing their own fiction stories helps them develop a deeper understanding of how all the plot elements work together to develop the story structure.

Be sure to ask similar questions about your students’ stories during writing conferences as you do when analyzing the plot structure of a text during your reading lessons. This helps them develop the structure of their work while solidifying their overall understanding of the story elements.

Download this cheat sheet for questions to ask about the structure of your students’ fiction writing.

The 9 Effective Tips for Teaching Plot to 3rd Graders

• Use a mental model – the roller coaster.
• Teach your students to anticipate the structure of the text.
• Practice with movies and familiar texts.
• Use interactive notebooks!
• Have discussions about how the events influence the development of the plot structure.
• Use reading responses for independent reading and/or as exit tickets.
• Use graphic organizers that visually represent the plot structure.
• Discuss the story elements and plot structure of wordless picture books.
• Connect it to their writing!

Help your students put it all together and avoid the mistakes I made with my poor third-grade guinea pigs.

Want your plot lesson plans done for you?

Grab my 5-day plot unit here! It includes your reading, vocabulary, and mentor sentence lessons for the week. Teaching plot to 3rd graders just got easier!

This 5-day TEKS and Common Core aligned plot structure unit will help you teach your students to identify, sequence, and understand how the main plot points work together and influence each other to develop the plot structure of the story.

This plot unit covers several components of your ELA instruction: read aloud, detailed reading lessons, vocabulary, and grammar (using mentor sentences). There is also a connection to writing with response to text and writing station prompts!

These plot structure interactive notebook pages include 4 interactive notebook pages, a book list, and lesson ideas. They are sold separately and inside the year-long Reading Interactive Notebook .

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