Same Author, Same Characters is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on finding what two related stories share and change, aligned to Common Core standard RL.3.9. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 24 of them with 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 9 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.
Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 24 of these 25 sets ask different questions — this skill does not have 25 questions to give. The rest reorder them, so no two pupils have the same paper in front of them.
Same Author, Same Characters
RL.3.9
NameDate
Read the text, then answer the questions.
1.Read the text, then answer the questions.
Conker
First stanza:
Inside the green and spiny case,
packed in a lining soft as silk,
it waits all summer in the dark
and grows the colour of stained milk.
Second stanza:
Then autumn cracks the case in two.
It falls. It hits the path and shines
so hard and bright and newly made
you cannot walk past it. Nobody can.
Third stanza:
By Sunday it is dull and cracked
and lighter than it was before —
a small brown stone inside a pocket,
and no one wants it any more.
1. How is a poem different from the play scene?
2. What do this poem and the play scene share?
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. How does Anansi's ending differ from the fox's?
2. How is Anansi like the fox in "The Fox and the Well"?
LessonPrint · RL.3.9 · Set 9 · free to copy for classroom use
Answer key — Same Author, Same Characters
Set 9. Prints on its own sheet.
1.1. A poem is in stanzas with rhythm and comparison; a scene is speech and stage directions. 2. Both are short and both build to a turn — the conker falling, Jon putting the lid down — and leave the reader to conclude.
2.1. Anansi is left with nothing by his own scheme; the fox talks somebody else into taking his place. 2. Both are clever — Anansi with his webs, the fox with his flattery — and both schemes cost somebody dearly.
Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.3.9 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.