What a Landscape Symbolizes in a Story

Pair a device sheet with the novel your class is reading, such as foreshadowing before a mystery. Keep the literary terms reference in student folders for discussions and essays.

Chart what black tree trunks and new green shoots stand for on Kaia's burned hillside. Writers often use a landscape as a symbol, so that the land itself mirrors what a character is feeling or learning. The directions on the page read: Read the story. Notice how the writer describes the hillside and what each part of the landscape might stand for. You will answer questions on page 2. An answer key is included.

Yes, both. We made it for 8th grade figurative language, and it works the same at home or at school. At home, a student can work through it alone and then go over it with you, which shows quickly what is solid and what needs another look. In class it works as independent practice, homework or a warm-up, and you can print one copy or a full set.

The hero's journey is a story pattern in which a hero leaves ordinary life, faces trials with help from others and returns changed. The Hero's Journey in a Modern Story lists eight stages, from the ordinary world to the return, and has students quote a story about a student named Lia for each one.

A symbolic setting is a place that stands for something larger, such as a feeling, a choice or a stage of life. In Symbolic Settings in Short Scenes, a crossroads stands for a choice and a locked greenhouse for grief. Students write what each setting symbolizes and the theme it points to.

Modern writers often reuse a myth's plot, character or lesson. Myth Figures in Modern Story Plots gives six Greek myth figures, such as Prometheus and Narcissus, and asks students to match modern stories to them. Tragic Flaw Plots Then and Now compares Icarus and King Midas with a story about a student coder.