Story Retell: Tell It Back in Order
Language · Grades 1–6 · 10 cards · about 15 min
Retell tasks for a story the student has just heard, each card constraining the retell differently so the same story yields several distinct samples.
Retell the story you just heard from the beginning. Name the character, the place and the problem before anything else.
Say it out loud
What's in this activity
- Retell the story you just heard from the beginning. Name the character, the place and the problem before anything else.
- Retell the same story in five sentences, then in one sentence. Say what you had to leave out.
- Retell the story as if the main character were telling it. Keep every event in the same order.
- Retell only the middle of the story: everything between the problem and the solution.
- Retell the story to somebody who has not heard it. Stop whenever they look confused and fix that part.
- Retell the story, then say what happened right before the ending and right after it.
- Retell the story leaving out one event on purpose. See whether your partner can name the missing piece.
- Retell the story using “first”, “then”, “after that” and “finally” at least once each.
- Retell the story from the ending backwards to the beginning.
- Retell the story, then answer: what did the character want, and did they get it?