I can recognize characteristics of a photo essay.

I can recognize and explain text and graphic features.

I can ask and answer questions to deepen understanding and gain information.

I can explain relationships among characters.

I can explain the influence of setting on plot.

I can point out that a person’s speaking voice is individual and recognizable.

I can explain that the way an author chooses words and develops sentences to share ideas also creates a voice that is unique. These word choices and sentence types create a mood, or feeling, for readers.

I can explain that an author’s word choice may also include literal language such as precise nouns and verbs to describe an action or event.

I can explain the use of text structure

Authors use text features such as bold text to show readers words and phrases that are important.

Many types of graphic features help to explain ideas in the text. Authors may use photos to show how something looks or to give readers a feeling for what an event was like.

Authors may present a chart to share information and details in clear and concise way.

Readers learn about characters from what they say and do, as well as from their relationships with other characters. Do they get along, or are they enemies? Are they alike, or very different?

Some characters (major characters) have a greater role in a story than others (minor characters).

The setting may be important to the story and what happens. For example, the events in a story set in summer might be very different from events that take place in winter.

Authors choose to tell the events in most stories in the order that they happen. This text structure helps readers see how the events build on each other, and how one event leads to the next.

Readers usually have to figure out the theme for themselves. Thinking about what characters have learned or how they changed helps readers figure out a story’s theme.

A story’s theme is not the same as its topic. While a theme is a lesson about life, a story’s topic is its general subject, such as basketball or families.

A person’s speaking voice is individual and recognizable. The way an author chooses words and develops sentences to share ideas also creates a voice that is unique. These word choices and sentence types create a mood, or feeling, for readers. An author’s word choice may also include literal language such as precise nouns and verbs to describe an action or event.