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Two Tales, One Pattern is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on comparing themes, settings and plots of related stories, 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 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 17 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.

Two Tales, One Pattern

RL.3.9

NameDate

Read Text 1 and answer the question under it.

1.Read Text 1 and answer the question under it.

Text 1: 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. How long had the violin been a mystery?
2.Now read Text 2 and answer these questions about BOTH texts.

Text 2: 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. How is Ada like Great-Aunt Sylvie?
  2. 2. How does this story's ending differ from "The Last Letter"?
  3. 3. How is this story like "The Last Letter"?

LessonPrint · RL.3.9 · Set 17 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Two Tales, One Pattern

Set 17. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Eleven years.
  2. 2.1. Both act rather than explain — Ada found the address, Sylvie held the violin and asked for potatoes. 2. This one closes the subject — Sylvie shuts the violin case; that one opens it up, and the letters are posted. 3. Both are about an object — a violin, a shoebox of letters — that carries somebody's history.

More practice for RL.3.9

Compare two books from a series on theme, setting and plot.

Teaching this next? Comparing Stories by One Author is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 3 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.3.9 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.