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What the Illustration Adds is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on explaining how a picture creates mood or emphasis, aligned to Common Core standard RL.3.7. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 23 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 18 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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One paper per pupil

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 23 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.

What the Illustration Adds

RL.3.7

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 would an illustration of the end show, and what mood would it create?
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 would an illustration of the turning point show, and what mood would it create?

LessonPrint · RL.3.7 · Set 18 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — What the Illustration Adds

Set 18. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Mr Ellis and Ada posting a shoebox full of letters — hopeful, after a long wait.
  2. 2.1. Anansi pulled eight ways at once by taut webs — chaotic and comic, matching the tone.

More practice for RL.3.7

Explain what the illustrations add to the mood or the characters.

Teaching this next? What the Illustrations Contribute is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 3 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.3.7 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.