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Words That Allude to Myth is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on meanings that point back to a mythological character, aligned to Common Core standard RL.4.4. 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 23 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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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.

Words That Allude to Myth

RL.4.4

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

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. "They took the hill away in carts" — is this literal?
  2. 2. "They are not wrong" — what does the poem mean by this?
  3. 3. "The water hides the ledge, the crane" — what does "hides" suggest?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Arachne

Arachne could weave. Shepherds left their flocks to watch her hands. She was asked once whether the goddess Athene had taught her. "Nobody taught me," she said. "Let Athene weave against me and we shall see who learned from whom." An old woman at the edge of the crowd advised her to take it back. Arachne laughed at her. The old woman straightened up and was Athene. They wove for a day. Athene's cloth showed the gods in glory. Arachne's showed the gods behaving badly, and it was — everyone could see it — the better work. Athene tore it to pieces. Then she touched Arachne's forehead and made her into a spider, so that she could go on weaving for ever and nobody would ever look.

  1. 1. "Nobody would ever look" — what does this mean beyond the literal?
  2. 2. Spiders are called "arachnids". What does that allusion carry?

LessonPrint · RL.4.4 · Set 23 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Words That Allude to Myth

Set 23. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Largely literal — quarrying removed the hill — but stated so plainly it sounds impossible. 2. That calling it a lake is true now, whatever it used to be. 3. That the workings are deliberately out of sight, as though the water were concealing them.
  2. 2.1. Her skill continues but is never admired again, which is the real punishment. 2. It names them after Arachne, the weaver turned into a spider.

More practice for RL.4.4

Work out what words mean here, including ones that point back to myths.

Teaching this next? Allusions and Figurative Meaning is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 4 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.4.4 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.