Short Stories Elements

Exposition

• Setting and background info

• Turning point

• The end

• Events after the climax

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.5

Inciting Incident

• Setting and background

• Turning point where protagonist makes a tough decision

• Point in the story that grabs your attention

• Events after the climax

Rising Action

• Events leading to the climax

• Events after the climax

• Setting and background

• Point that hooks the reader's attention

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.5

Climax

• Events leading to the resolution

• Point that grabs the reader's attention

• Turning point where the protagonist makes a tough decision

• All conflicts are resolved and the story is over

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.5

Falling action

• Events leading to the climax

• Events leading to the resolution

• The turning point where the protagonist makes a tough choice

• Setting and background information

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.5

Resolution

• Setting and background

• Turning point in the story

• Grabs the reader's attention

• The end of the story; conflict usually resolved

Tags

CCSS.RL.6.3

CCSS.RL.6.5

The climax MUST involve which character's decision making?

• Protagonist

• Antagonist

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

Setting

• Physical surroundings

• Emotional feeling based on surroundings

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

CCSS.W.9-10.3D

Atmosphere

• Physical surroundings

• Emotional feeling based on surroundings

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Setting tells you where and when a story occurs. Setting includes two things: time and place. Time includes the time period. It can also include elapsed time, or how much time passes for the characters. The place is where a story happens, including details about what that space looks, sounds or smells like or what it is like to live there.

Read the following passage from Alice in Wonderland: 

Once in the wood, she was anxious to get back to her right size again, and then to get into that lovely garden. But how? Peeping over a mushroom, she beheld a large blue caterpillar sitting on the top with its arms folded...

Which detail from the text provides a clue to the place where this passage takes place?

• “Once in the wood…"
• “A large blue caterpillar..”
• “...get back to her right size again...”
• “...with its arms folded”

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

CCSS.W.9-10.3D