8th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 5 of 12
Limited, omniscient and unreliable narrators
Recognizing third-person limited and omniscient narrators, spotting clues that a narrator is unreliable, and thinking about how a story would change from another character's point of view.
Arizona Academic Standards learning standard: 8.RL.6 · limited, omniscient and unreliable narrators
Children can open this short lesson before they practice.
Example: A narrator uses he, she and they, and sees into only one character’s mind. What point of view is this? He, she and they mean third person. Only one mind means it is limited. Answer: third-person limited
In the Arizona Academic Standards, this is unit 5 of 12 in 8th grade English Language Arts, after Irony, Satire & Allusion and before Forms, Patterns & Visuals.
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: Arizona Department of Education
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
What point of view is used?
Everyone at the table was thinking about Jin's birthday. Jin thought his friends had forgotten, and he pretended not to care. His mother, in the kitchen, checked the cake for the third time. Outside the window, his cousins crouched behind the hedge, trying not to laugh.
third-person omniscient
Hint: We learn what Jin, his mother and his cousins are doing and thinking.
Question 2
How would the passage change if it were told only from Jin's view?
Everyone at the table was thinking about Jin's birthday. Jin thought his friends had forgotten, and he pretended not to care. His mother, in the kitchen, checked the cake for the third time. Outside the window, his cousins crouched behind the hedge, trying not to laugh.
The reader would not know about the cake or the cousins.
Hint: Jin cannot see the kitchen or the hedge.
Question 3
How does the narrator add humor and suspense?
Everyone at the table was thinking about Jin's birthday. Jin thought his friends had forgotten, and he pretended not to care. His mother, in the kitchen, checked the cake for the third time. Outside the window, his cousins crouched behind the hedge, trying not to laugh.
by letting the reader know what Jin does not
Hint: The reader knows about the party before Jin does.
Question 4
Why does the narrator show both Kai's and the neighbor's thoughts?
Kai watched the new neighbor's fence go up and saw it as a wall between them. Each board seemed to say, “Keep out.”
Across the yard, the neighbor hammered in the last nail. She felt proud. At last, her dog could play safely.
to show that one event can mean different things to different people
Hint: The same fence means a wall to one and safety to the other.
Question 5
What point of view is used?
Kai watched the new neighbor's fence go up and saw it as a wall between them. Each board seemed to say, “Keep out.”
Across the yard, the neighbor hammered in the last nail. She felt proud. At last, her dog could play safely.
third-person omniscient
Hint: The narrator tells the thoughts of two characters.
Question 6
A story is told with I, but the narrator only describes things that happened to other people. What can a reader still learn?
the narrator's opinions, even when describing others
Hint: First-person narrators always show their own view.