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

Why Anansi Has Thin Legs

Long ago Anansi the spider had eight fat legs, and a nose for other people's cooking. One morning he smelled beans at Rabbit's house. "Tie a web to my leg," he told Rabbit, "and tug it when the beans are ready." Rabbit agreed. Then Anansi smelled fish at Monkey's, and yams at Guinea Fowl's, and soup at Warthog's. To each he said the same thing. By noon he had eight webs tied to eight legs. At noon every pot was ready at once. Eight tugs came together. The webs pulled so hard that Anansi's legs stretched thin as thread — and he got no dinner at all. They have been thin ever since.

  1. 1. What happened between Rabbit agreeing and the eight tugs?
  2. 2. Describe Anansi's motivation. What does he want, and what does he do about it?
  3. 3. How do Anansi's actions cause the ending?

LessonPrint · RL.3.3 · Set 14 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — How Actions Drive the Story

Set 14. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Writing kept his sister present for him — stopping would have meant losing her. 2. She is persistent and quietly kind — three weeks and eleven calls, without being asked. 3. Mr Ellis kept writing into a shoebox, and Ada spent three weeks finding the new address.
  2. 2.1. Anansi made the same arrangement with Monkey, Guinea Fowl and Warthog. 2. He wants as much free food as possible, so he arranges a web with every neighbour at once. 3. Because he made eight arrangements, all eight tugs came at once and stretched his legs.

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