How a Story Opens is a free printable Grade 2 English worksheet on what the beginning of a story sets up, aligned to Common Core standard RL.2.5. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions that each ask different questions, so no two students in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.
Set 13 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.
Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. All 25 sets ask different questions.
How a Story Opens
RL.2.5
NameDate
Read the story, then answer the questions.
1.Read the text, then answer the questions.
What the Tide Left
Every low tide, Grandpa and Tess walked out to the rock pools.
Tess wanted to take a starfish home. Grandpa said no. "It would die in a bucket," he said. "Look at it here instead."
Tess crouched for a long time. She saw the starfish move — slowly, on hundreds of tiny feet she had not known it had.
She did not ask again. On the way back she said, "It's better in the pool anyway."
1. How does the beginning set up the story?
2. How does the ending conclude the action?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.
Fog Morning
The hill has gone. The wood has gone.
The mailbox stands in a cloud, alone.
No sheep, no gate, no crooked tree —
only the ten short steps I see.
I walk. The ten steps walk with me.
The gate appears. And then the tree.
The hill comes back. The wood comes back.
The fog rolls off along the track.
1. How is the last verse the opposite of the first?
2. How many verses does this poem have?
LessonPrint · RL.2.5 · Set 13 · free to copy for classroom use
Answer key — How a Story Opens
Set 13. Prints on its own sheet.
1.1. It establishes the regular walk to the rock pools, so the starfish moment stands out. 2. Tess says the starfish is better in the pool, so she has changed her own mind.
2.1. The first says the hill and wood have gone; the last says they come back. 2. Four verses.
More practice for RL.2.5
Describe how a story opens and how it closes.
Teaching this next? How a Story Begins and Ends is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.