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How Actions Drive the Story is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on explaining how what a character does shapes the events, aligned to Common Core standard RL.3.3. 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 pupils in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 11 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. All 25 sets ask different questions.

How Actions Drive the Story

RL.3.3

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Last Letter

Every Thursday for six years, Mr Ellis posted a letter to his sister in Canada. Then the letters started coming back. Address unknown. He kept writing them anyway. He put them in a shoebox instead of the postbox. When his neighbour Ada asked why, he said, "Because the day I stop writing is the day she is really gone." Ada went home and looked up the town on a map. It took her three weeks and eleven phone calls to find the new address. The shoebox held ninety-two letters. They posted them all on the same day.

  1. 1. What do Ada's actions tell you about her?
  2. 2. What happened between the letters coming back and them all being posted?
  3. 3. Describe Mr Ellis's motivation for writing letters he could not send.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Wrong Bus

Halim was two stops past the school before he looked up. The bus was going the other way. He had got on at the same shelter, in the same rain, and never checked the number. His stomach dropped. He thought about crying and decided against it, because it would not help. He read the route map above the window. He worked out that the 41 came back the same way. He rang the bell, got off, crossed at the lights, and waited eleven minutes for the 41. He was twenty minutes late. Mrs Achebe asked what happened. "I got the wrong bus," said Halim, "and then I got the right one."

  1. 1. How do Halim's actions contribute to the sequence of events?
  2. 2. Describe Halim's character from what he does.
  3. 3. List what Halim did, in order, after he read the map.

LessonPrint · RL.3.3 · Set 11 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — How Actions Drive the Story

Set 11. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. She is persistent and quietly kind — three weeks and eleven calls, without being asked. 2. Mr Ellis kept writing into a shoebox, and Ada spent three weeks finding the new address. 3. Writing kept his sister present for him — stopping would have meant losing her.
  2. 2.1. Because he read the map and worked out the 41, he got himself back rather than staying lost. 2. Level-headed — he decides crying will not help and works out the route instead. 3. Rang the bell, got off, crossed at the lights, waited eleven minutes, caught the 41.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.3.3 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.