Introducing the concept of text structure to elementary students is made easy—and fun!—through the use of the Circle Plot Diagram. The tool can be used as a prewriting graphic organizer for students writing original stories with a circular plot structure (e.g., If You Take a Mouse to School), as well as a postreading organizer used to explore the text structures in a book. By students inserting main examples of a story’s plot directly onto the circular interactive (shown at left), the concepts of structure and plot are reinforced each time the tool is used. When used as a prewriting exercise, the diagram can be printed out and shared with peers and teacher for feedback and revision in this phase of the writing process.

Visit this interactive tool at: http://readwritethink.org/materials/circle-plot/.

ReadWriteThink Lessons That Use This Tool

Completing the Circle: The Craft of Circular Plot Structure (K-2)
After exploring the organizing structure and writer’s craft of picture books, students identify, explore and apply the elements of circle plot structures to their own stories. Students use graphic organizers, read and write stories, and use checklists to assess their work.

Exchanging Ideas by Sharing Journals: Interactive Response in the Classroom (3-5)
Pairs of students alternately respond to literature in literature journals, developing ongoing written dialogues that include making connections and predictions, stating opinions, asking and answering each others’ questions, and enhancing responses with drawings. The lesson works well with independent reading and/or literature group structures.

Integrating Language Arts Using If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (K-2)
This lesson integrates reading, writing, listening, and speaking to boost students' comprehension skills. Students explore Laura Joffe Numeroff 's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie using a variety of techniques, beginning with a picture walk and ending with the creation and publication of their own versions of the text.

Spend a Day in My Shoes: Exploring the Role of Perspective in Narrative (9-12)
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus explains to Scout that "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." Make this advice more literal by inviting students to imagine spending a day in someone else's shoes in this writing activity.

Unwinding A Circular Plot: Prediction Strategies in Reading and Writing (3-5)
This lesson, using circular stories, invites students to use a graphic organizer to explore the plot of the stories while focusing on prediction and sequencing skills. After exploring the features of circular plot stories, students write their own stories individually or in small groups.

Weekly Writer’s Blogs: Building a Reflective Community of Support (9-12)
In this digital rethinking of the traditional weekly writer’s logs, students analyze example writer’s blog entries then begin the habit of writing their own reflective weekly entries, which focus on the writing that they have done over the past seven days.