The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear
The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear, analysis by story elements.
Focus Questions
- Who are the characters?
- What is the setting?
- Who is telling the story?
- The mouse?
- The author?
- The bear?
- A narrator?
- Someone else?
- The story is told in what point of view?
- What is the plot?
- What happened?
- Where?
- Beginning - found red ripe strawberry and worried the Bear will come
- Middle - picked, guarded
- End - shared
- Where is the bear?
- What is the theme?
- What are some characteristics of the author's style?
- Use of words such as - especially, Boom Boom!!, Sniff! Sniff! Sniff!, guarding, disguised, Yum! strawberry mouse.
- How does the author use inference and suspense in the story?
Goals and outcomes
- Read the story aloud together to enjoy a piece of quality literature.
- Discuss the interesting parts of the story.
- Casually probe to see what the readers and listeners know about story elements (characters, setting, plot, point of view, theme, style, tone)
- Suggest story elements can be used as a way to guide how a person thinks about stories.
- If participants haven't commented on the absence of the Bear, ask them if they think the bear is really a character. Ask them to support their answers with reasons why they think what they do. Comment about their ideas being inferences and several are possible.
- Ask about the point of view. Who is telling the story and to whom? Could be to the reader, or to another mouse? Are these inferences?
- Flip through the book together and find words and phrases that listeners and readers think are interesting and share them. Ask.
- Are there some commonalities with what you selected?
- Do the commonalities create a style?
- How would you describe that style?
- What is theme? What might the mouse say that sort of summarizes the thinking and decision made in the story?
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