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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 24 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: Low Water

Stanza one: Twice a day the sea walks out and leaves the harbour standing, the boats set down on their own keels like birds that have stopped landing. Stanza two: The mud shines. Old anchors show, a bicycle, a broken chain, the whole forgotten underneath made briefly plain. Stanza three: Then, without a sound at all, it turns and starts to come. The bicycle goes under first. The harbour lifts. The boats go dumb.

  1. 1. What three things are showing in the mud?
2.Now read Text 2 and answer these questions about BOTH texts.

Text 2: The Quarry, Filled

Stanza one: They took the hill away in carts for ninety years, and then they stopped. The hole they left filled up with rain until the rain had reached the top. Stanza two: Now people swim where men once cut. The water hides the ledge, the crane, the drill-marks in the standing rock, the tracks, the shed, the loading lane. Stanza three: The children diving off the edge have never heard the word for it. They call it "the lake". They are not wrong. A thing becomes what people make of it.

  1. 1. How does a poem's structure differ from a story's?
  2. 2. How is this poem like "Low Water"?
  3. 3. How is its conclusion different from "Low Water"?

LessonPrint · RL.4.9 · Set 24 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Similar Themes, Different Cultures

Set 24. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Old anchors, a bicycle and a broken chain.
  2. 2.1. A poem uses stanzas and line breaks; a story uses paragraphs of continuous sentences. 2. Both are about water covering and uncovering things people have left behind. 3. "Low Water" watches the cycle; this one argues that the meaning has changed for good.

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.