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5th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 1 of 11

Plot and Conflict

How stories rise and fall

What your child practices

The five parts of a plot, types of conflict (person vs. person, nature or self), and telling first-, second- and third-person point of view apart.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 5.17; 5.19 · plot structure and conflict

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. A plot has five parts: exposition (who and where), rising action, climax (the most exciting turning point), falling action and resolution.
  2. Conflict is the struggle: person vs. person, person vs. nature or person vs. self.
  3. First person uses I, second person uses you, third person uses he, she or they.

Example: “In the last second, Kenji dives and stops the final shot.” Which part of the plot is this? It is the most tense moment, when the game is decided. After this, things wind down. Answer: climax

Plot and Conflict in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 1 of 11 in 5th grade English Language Arts, before Figurative Language.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Put the events of “The New Player” in order, from the exposition to the resolution.

    • She asks to join the lunchtime chess games, but the players tell her the boards are full.
    • At the school chess tournament, Maya faces the best player in the final game and wins.
    • The other players crowd around and ask her how she planned her moves.
    • Maya starts a chess club, and soon it has twelve members.
    • Maya has just moved to a new town and doesn't know anyone at her school.

  2. Question 2

    Which part of the plot is this event? “Just as the rain starts, Priya hears a faint moo and finds the calf stuck behind a gate in the old barn.”

    Priya and her brother Jay are spending the summer at their grandparents' farm.

    A calf goes missing, and dark clouds gather as they search the fields.

    Just as the rain starts, Priya hears a faint moo and finds the calf stuck behind a gate in the old barn.

    They free the calf and lead it back to its mother.

    Their grandfather thanks them and lets them name the calf Thunder.

    • exposition
    • climax
    • falling action
    • rising action

  3. Question 3

    Which part of the plot is this event? “A calf goes missing, and dark clouds gather as they search the fields.”

    Priya and her brother Jay are spending the summer at their grandparents' farm.

    A calf goes missing, and dark clouds gather as they search the fields.

    Just as the rain starts, Priya hears a faint moo and finds the calf stuck behind a gate in the old barn.

    They free the calf and lead it back to its mother.

    Their grandfather thanks them and lets them name the calf Thunder.

    • exposition
    • climax
    • falling action
    • rising action

  4. Question 4

    In “The Butterfly Watch,” which event is the climax?

    • As the class watches, its skin splits open and a green chrysalis appears.
    • Every day, the students check on the chrysalis as it slowly darkens.
    • Sam's class is raising monarch caterpillars in a tank by the window.
    • One caterpillar stops eating and hangs upside down, and the class worries that it is sick.

  5. Question 5

    From which point of view is this sentence told?

    She grabbed her backpack and raced to catch the bus.

    • third person
    • first person

  6. Question 6

    Which part of a plot builds tension as the problem grows?

    • falling action
    • exposition
    • resolution
    • rising action

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