Mini-Lesson

Story Structure

Grades 4-6

Students will study story structure.

1. The timeforkids.com news story Making More Space on the Space Station is sure to engage your students. Use it to focus their attention on story structure.

2. After reading the article, tell students that much of this story follows a chronological structure. Explain that chronology has to do with time order. Ask: What happened on Monday? The first paragraph tells us that the Endeavour crew delivered equipment to the International Space Station. Then point students to paragraph 3. Ask: What happened on Friday? (The Endeavour mission began.)

3. Have students go through the rest of the article to find two things that happened on the trip on Sunday and on Tuesday. Explain that writers often structure stories chronologically because it makes it easier for readers to follow and understand the story. In this story, the writer began with events that happened on Monday. That's because these events have been the most important, or newsworthy, part of the mission so far. In the second part of the story she begins to follow a chronological order, and explains to readers what happened on different days of the week.

EXTEND LEARNING

The Endeavour trip is scheduled to last 16 days. Challenge students to follow the story in the news and track the progress of the Endeavour crew. After the trip, have students use a chronological structure to write their own article explaining key moments in the Endeavour mission.

Have students use the information in the story to create daily journal entries from the perspective of an Endeavour crew member.