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Similar Themes, Different Cultures is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on comparing how two texts treat one theme, aligned to Common Core standard RL.4.9. 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 2 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.

Similar Themes, Different Cultures

RL.4.9

NameDate

Read Text 1 and answer the question under it.

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

Text 1: The Water Came Up (told by Nell)

I was the one who said it was nothing. The river had been over the path before. Twice that winter. Both times it went down by morning, so when Dad started moving the boxes upstairs I told him he was making a fuss. I went to bed. At two o'clock I woke because my slippers were floating. Everything after that is in pieces. Dad on the stairs with the cat. Water the colour of tea. The sound the fridge made when it went over. We sat on the landing until it got light. Nobody said anything about the boxes. That was worse than if they had.

  1. 1. Where did the family sit until it got light?
2.Now read Text 2 and answer these questions about BOTH texts.

Text 2: Mill Lane, February

The houses on Mill Lane were built in 1840, close to the water because the mill was the work. On the night of the flood, eleven of the fourteen households had moved possessions upstairs by midnight. Three had not. The water rose fastest between one and three in the morning. It reached a metre in the lowest houses. By dawn the fire service had brought everyone out. Nobody was hurt. Four families were out of their homes until August. At the meeting afterwards, the argument was not about the river. It was about why the warning, which had been issued at six that evening, had reached some doors and not others.

  1. 1. How does this account differ in focus from Nell's?
  2. 2. What does Nell's account give that this one cannot?
  3. 3. What does this account give that Nell's cannot?

LessonPrint · RL.4.9 · Set 2 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Similar Themes, Different Cultures

Set 2. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. On the landing.
  2. 2.1. This gives times, totals and the warning system; Nell gives one night as she experienced it. 2. What the night felt like — the floating slippers, the fridge going over, the silence about the boxes. 3. The whole street — fourteen households, the water height, the outcome for four families.

More practice for RL.4.9

Compare how different cultures handle the same theme or story pattern.

Teaching this next? Patterns of Events Across Cultures is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 4 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.4.9 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.