Skip to content
LessonPrint

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

Next set

One paper per pupil

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425

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 Violin in the Loft

Nobody in our family plays anything. So the violin in the loft was a mystery for eleven years. Then Great-Aunt Sylvie came for Christmas and saw the case on the table. She went very quiet. "That was my brother's," she said. "He played in a café in Marseille before the war." She opened it. Three strings had gone, and the bridge lay loose in the bottom of the case. She did not play it. She held it under her chin for about ten seconds, put it back, and closed the lid. Then she asked for more potatoes and did not mention it again.

  1. 1. Describe Great-Aunt Sylvie from what she does rather than what she says.
  2. 2. Why might Sylvie have put the violin back without playing it?
  3. 3. What did Sylvie do between opening the case and closing the lid?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Night the Lamp Went Out

Grace's father kept the lighthouse. On the worst night of the winter, the lamp went out. He was ill in bed. Grace was eleven. She carried the oil up ninety-seven steps in the dark, twice, because the can was too heavy to lift full. Her arms shook so much on the second trip that she had to sit down halfway. She trimmed the wick the way she had watched a hundred times. She struck the match on the fourth try. By the time the light swung out across the water, three ships had already turned back. Grace never knew whether she had been in time. She decided not to think about it.

  1. 1. Describe Grace's character. What traits do her actions show?
  2. 2. How do Grace's actions contribute to the sequence of events?
  3. 3. What did Grace do between carrying the oil and striking the match?

LessonPrint · RL.3.3 · Set 25 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — How Actions Drive the Story

Set 25. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Private and reserved — she shows feeling by going quiet and holding the violin, then changes the subject. 2. The story does not say; the broken strings, or the memory of her brother, or both. 3. She held the violin under her chin for about ten seconds.
  2. 2.1. Determined and capable — she climbed ninety-seven steps twice while shaking, and finished the job. 2. Because she carried the oil and lit the lamp, the light swung out across the water again. 3. She trimmed the wick.

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