English Language Arts and Reading.2.8.C

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The student is expected to

describe and understand plot elements, including the main events, the conflict, and the resolution, for texts read aloud and independently; and

multiple genres TEKS talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

Multiple genres: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--literary elements. The student recognizes and analyzes literary elements within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse literary texts.

Ask students to verbally identify and explain the main events, identify the conflict and resolution, and describe the progression of the plot in chronological order in a whole-group discussion or a small-group setting. Use a retelling rubric to assist with this assessment.

It is important to scaffold this standard so students can understand a story completely before asking them to synthesize all of the information for each story at once.

Examples:

  • First, ask students to identify the main idea of a story and name some supporting details.
  • Then, ask students to retell the plot in chronological order.
  • Next, ask students to discuss the conflict and resolution of a story.

Note:

By end of year, second grade students should be able to hear all parts of a story and identify each component within the same story independently. At the beginning of the year, the second grade student may only be able to discuss one part at a time. Even if students can identify multiple story elements, they likely will need support being able to do it with a passage they have read independently.

Conflict is an element of plot when the opposition of persons or forces brings about dramatic tension central to the plot of a story that may be internal as a psychological conflict within a character (e.g., man versus himself) or external as a physical or outward conflict between the character and something/someone else (e.g., man versus man, man versus nature, or man versus society).
Main events are the events in the plot that are essential parts of the story.
A story's plot provides its organizational structure. Although a story can be told in different ways, the plot of any story generally includes the same basic elements revealed in a forward-progressing order: conflict (main problem or challenge in the story), sequence of events (important moments in the story relating to the conflict), and the resolution (the final outcome in a story).
Resolution is the element of plot structure that contains the conclusion or final outcome in a story and in some capacity resolves all problems and conflicts; not all stories have clear resolutions.