Activities to Teach the Literary Elements to Kids
Literature is made of up a number of elements, such as the plot of the work, its general theme, its characters, any imagery it conveys and other components of the author's art. You can teach these elements by simply lecturing about their definitions and giving examples, but it's far more effective to teach and reinforce the elements through games and activities.
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Plot Graphing
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Have students draw a line graph for the work you are studying. Though it's not actually possible to quantify action, it is possible to visualize it. Students should identify key events in the story and draw points on the graph to represent the level of action. The points where the characters are introduced in the beginning, for example, will be lower than the rising action, which will in turn be lower than the climax. The climax will be higher than the denouement and conclusion. Considering and drawing a visual representation of plot action makes it much more vivid and realistic to students.
Foreshadowing Activity
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Foreshadowing is another important plot element used by writers. A good way to teach it is to build on the plot graph above. Have students look at their plot graphs and identify key events that were foreshadowed. Have them mark every place where foreshadowing occurs.
Next, have each child or group of children come to the front of the class, show their indications foreshadowing and back them up with explanations and examples. This will force them not only to recognize foreshadowing but to defend it to a group of peers.
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Point of View
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Another key element in literature is the point of view from which a story is told. As the point of view changes, the story changes. No narrator can deliver every piece of information, and indeed he shouldn't, as this would make the work less of a story and more of an information dump.
A good activity for point of view is to tell or describe a small story with multiple characters. It does not need to be complicated -- it could just be a sentence or two, such as "A helicopter flew above a bridge as a dog barked at it and a couple had a heated discussion that became louder and louder as they shouted over the helicopter's noise."
Next, have children work alone or in groups to write their own stories about this event, each from a different point of view. One could be an omniscient point of view, the other could be from the point of view of the helicopter pilot, and one could even be the dog. This will help to show them that as point of view changes and the narrator's perspective and motivations change, the story changes, too.
Irony Activities
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Irony is another key element of literature, and it can be extremely difficult to define. Indeed, its very definition can trend toward subjectivity -- what is ironic for one person is often not ironic for another.
But some clear differences exist between irony and bad luck. A good way to underscore this to students is to distribute a few sentences, such as "There is a fire in a building." Have the students write one sentence after the sentence you give them that makes it ironic and another that simply makes it a coincidence. "There is a fire in a building; ironically, the building was a fire extinguisher factory" is an irony. However, "There is a fire in a building; it burned to the ground because the fire truck was out of water" is just bad luck and incompetence by the fire department.
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