Who's Driving the Story Discussion Guide

A student-friendly 1-page writing rubric simplified into a 3-level checklist (Yes, Almost, Not Yet). Features visually clear standards-based criteria, visual icons, checkbox prompts for self-assessment, name/date lines, and sections for student goals and teacher feedback.

A highly visual, 9-slide presentation for introducing 'The Present', framing students as 'Cinematic Detectives', pausing for mid-film predictions, and guiding analysis of character change and concrete symbolism. Includes detailed teacher prompts and large, readable text.

A beautiful, high-impact 1-page ELA anchor chart designed to scaffold symbolism. It maps out three key symbols from 'The Present'—the box, the puppy, and the red ball—clearly linking their physical attributes to their abstract, deeper thematic meanings.

A highly engaging, 2-page printable student worksheet for recording predictions during the mid-film pause, drawing inferences on character evolution, and deconstructing the symbols of the cardboard box, the puppy's leg, and the red ball. Includes handwriting spaces and clear prompts.

A detailed, 2-page print-ready lesson plan for teachers, outlining the 60-minute ELA lesson. It covers standard alignment, step-by-step instructions for dual viewings of 'The Present', guided questioning prompts, and scaffolding strategies for analyzing symbolism.

A comprehensive teacher guide and answer key for the Literary Devices Theme Packet. Includes daily learning objectives, exemplary student responses, guidance on common student misconceptions, and high-impact discussion prompts.

An expanded 5-day printable student packet designed to build mastery in identifying themes and analyzing how authors use explicit literary devices. Features significantly longer, more descriptive stories for Days 2 to 5 to provide deeper narrative context for student analysis.

A second 5-day printable student packet designed to build theme-analysis mastery. This set focuses on five active figurative and literary devices: Metaphor, Imagery, Personification, Satire, and Allusion. Each day has a short, engaging story with student writing lines.

A 5-day printable student packet designed to build mastery in identifying themes and analyzing how authors use explicit literary devices—such as character foils, irony, symbolism, and juxtaposition—to develop those themes. Each day features an altered, engaging story and analysis questions.

A printable set of 8 detective-themed genre task cards designed for 5th graders. Features dotted cut lines, engaging mini-passages covering four fiction subgenres and four mixed literature formats, and high-contrast, reader-friendly layouts.

A comprehensive 2-page teacher-facing lesson plan and answer key. Contains clear instructions on classroom execution, guided questioning scripts, detailed answer justifications, and practical differentiation suggestions for diverse learners.

A printable 2-page student worksheet designed as a 'Detective Log'. Contains structured spaces with clean white backgrounds for tracking clues during the whole-group game, the solo task card activity, and the daily warm-ups. Features an integrated quick-reference genre cheat sheet.

An interactive, detective-themed classroom slide presentation for practicing genre identification. Includes a whole-group reveal game, independent task cards, and quick daily warm-ups/exit tickets. Uses high-visibility layouts with a strict minimum font size of 24px (text-2xl) for comfortable projection.

A comprehensive guided notes packet in greyscale designed to accompany the Day 9 lesson on writing short and extended responses. It includes interspersed fill-in-the-blank instructions, checklist scaffolds, and practice prompts with sentence starters.

A revised 3-page printable guided notes handout in a sophisticated greyscale technical-notebook aesthetic. Updated Page 3 container heights to ensure the Touching Spirit Bear excerpt renders completely without text truncation.

A highly structured two-page narrative writing graphic organizer and editing checklist for the novel Two Roads. Designed for SPED students with sentence starters, word banks, character traits, and a step-by-step paragraph planner.

A 5-page printable student workbook for Week 2 (Informational Writing). Features high-contrast animal topic cards, cut-and-paste fact builders, visual habitat trackers, and a poster assembly draft sheet tailored for special education.