Plan an Adventure Story With a Race Against the Clock

Read the topic and the model together, and let your child talk the plot through before writing in the organizer. After the draft, have them reread it aloud and fix any mistakes. Check the two dialogue fix-up pages with the answer key.

Read a made-up model about a lost dog, then plan a hiking group's race to reach camp before dark from morning to sunset. In an adventure, a character faces each obstacle on the way to a goal. The directions on the page read: Read the topic and the model. Then, write the goal. Then, write what happens at each of the 4 times of day in the event boxes. Then, write the ending, 2 lines for each box. Then, use your plan to write your draft on lined paper.

Yes, both. We made it for 4th Grade creative writing, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with story writing. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

W.4.3 asks for a situation and narrator, events that unfold naturally, dialogue and description, transition words, concrete and sensory details and a conclusion. Each sheet focuses on one of these while the student writes a whole story.

Telling names a feeling: Omar was scared. Showing lets the reader see it: Omar's hands shook as he backed away from the frame. The Mysterious Neighbor sheet has students rewrite tell sentences as show sentences.

First person uses I and tells the story from inside one character. Third person uses he, she or they and can follow more than one character. A Message in a Bottle has students circle one before planning.

Two pages have one: Punctuate the Dialogue in a Short Story and Replace Said With Words That Show How It Was Said. Every story is different, so for the other sheets check that the draft follows the organizer or planner and uses the skill or genre the sheet practices.