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Two Texts in One Genre is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on comparing how two texts of a kind treat a theme, aligned to Common Core standard RL.5.9. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 22 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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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 22 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.

Two Texts in One Genre

RL.5.9

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

What We Kept

Stanza one: We kept the table, which was too big, and the clock, which had never gone, and a tin of buttons nobody wanted, and the habit of turning lights off. Stanza two: We gave away the good chairs. We gave away the china, all of it. We gave away the piano to a school because none of us could play. Stanza three: Ten years on, I would not know the chairs if I saw them in a window on a street. But I turn the hall light off behind me every single time, and think of her.

  1. 1. How is its ending different from "The Bell"?
  2. 2. How is this poem like "The Bell"?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Refusal

The rule was that everyone in Year Six performed at the leavers' assembly. Kemi told Mr Adeyemi she would not. Not could not — would not. He asked why. She said that if she explained, he would try to solve it, and it was not a problem to be solved. It was a decision. He could have made her. Instead he asked whether she would run the sound desk, which nobody had volunteered for and which meant she would be there for every rehearsal. She said yes. At the assembly she was at the back, in the dark, and every cue was perfect. Her mother asked afterwards why she had not been in it. Kemi said she had been.

  1. 1. How is Kemi like Ivy Sallow?
  2. 2. How is Mr Adeyemi's response different from Mr Whately's?

LessonPrint · RL.5.9 · Set 18 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Two Texts in One Genre

Set 18. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. "What We Kept" ends with one person turning a hall light off; "The Bell" ends with a school ringing for a whole village. 2. Both are about something small — a hall light habit, a bell — that outlasts the household or church it belonged to.
  2. 2.1. Both make a decision that costs them something and both stand by it afterwards. 2. He gives Kemi a real choice; Whately withholds the information that would have allowed one.

More practice for RL.5.9

Compare two stories in one genre on how they treat a theme.

Teaching this next? Comparing Stories in the Same Genre is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 5 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.5.9 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.