Story Pyramid

Author: Donna Calder
School or Affiliation: Bullhead City Intermediate School, Bullhead City, AZ
Endorsed by: These lesson plans are the result of the work of the teachers who have attended the Columbia Education Center's Summer Workshop. CEC is a consortium of teacher from 14 western states dedicated to improving the quality of education in the rural, western, United States, and particularly the quality of math and science Education. CEC uses Big Sky Telegraph as the hub of their telecommunications network that allows the participating teachers to stay in contact with their trainers and peers that they have met at the Workshops.

Date: May 1994

Grade Level/Subject:

All grade levels with modification for the primary grades/reading/whole language

Overview:

This is a strategy to help students with comprehension. Could be used for character traits and relationships with other characters.

Purpose:

to make sure the students understand the story

Objectives:

Students will be able:

1. to read and understand a story lin
2. to state the story problem
3. to state the solution to the problem

Materials:

overhead, transparency, paper, and pencils

Activity:

Prepare the transparency for the class to do as a class activity the first few times. Later the students should be able to do this on their own.

Story Pyramid

	          
                                       1. ____
                                    2. ____  ____
                                 3. ___  ____  ____
                               4. ___  ___  ____  ____
                            5. ____  ____  ____  ____  ____
                         6. ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____
                      7. ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____
                   8. ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____

Have the students fill in the pyramid with the information asked for below.

On line

1. write the name of the main character
2. two words describing the main character
3. three words describing the setting
4. four words stating the story problem
5. five words describing one event in the story
6. six words describing a second event
7. seven words describing a third event
8. eight words describing the solution to the problem

The more the students work with this activity, the easier it will become. Have the students write a sentence for each line using the number of spaces as the amount of words for each sentence. Then they can write a sentence for each space for each line.

Tying It All Together:

Use this pyramid as an outline for a summary of the story.

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