A story has five basic but important elements. These five components are: the characters, the setting, the plot, the problem, and the solution. These essential elements keep the story running smoothly and allow the action to develop in a logical way that the reader can follow. While each element is individually essential to the story, how they interact with one another is even more important to what happens, and how the story ends. Change one element, and you possibly have changed the entire story.  Learning to differentiate among the elements that go into a good story helps students not only appreciate literature but become better writers themselves. Strategies in our classroom for teaching story elements include a combination of group work and independent writing.

To support this learning, the second graders investigated different versions of the folktale, The Gingerbread Boy.  As they studied the stories, they discovered that when a author changed one or more story elements, the story changed dramatically.  We discussed how we can take a story that we enjoy, change at least one element, and have a brand new story!  It was truly an “Ah Ha” moment!

We shared different versions, and using graphic organizers, we discussed how the stories differed based on the change of different story elements.

Of course, we love to work across the curriculum so we carried our gingerbread theme to math.  We created gingerbread house floor plans on grid paper, then computed the area and perimeter.

We also explored probability.  We were given giant gingerbread boy cookies (thank you, Mrs. Rothwell).  Each child was asked to take one bite.  We then gathered data, collected tally marks, and graphed our results on what part of the gingerbread man was eaten first.  We discovered the head was the most popular first bite!

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Of course…we had to make gingerbread houses!  SOOOOO much candy!  Thank you for the extra work Mrs. Rothwell and Mrs. Albert!