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Beyond the Pencil Line worksheet preview

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Beyond the Pencil Line

Analyze an original hiking story to explain how word choice, thoughts, and changing reactions develop a narrator’s point of view.

Grade 6ELAInteractive · Printable

Aligned toRL.6.6

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What’s included

  • Single worksheet
  • Auto-graded online
  • 1 Common Core standard
  • Printable answer key
  • 14 questions
  • Classroom-ready

Details

Format
Interactive · Printable
Grade
Grade 6
Subject
ELA
Question types
Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

  • Students explain how a narrator’s language reveals attitudes toward events and other characters.
  • Students trace how an author develops a narrator’s changing point of view using textual evidence.
  • Students distinguish a narrator’s observations from personal judgments.

How to use

Have students read the story independently, then complete the paired analysis and evidence questions. Discuss how the ending changes the meaning of the opening.

Curriculum

Common Core standard covered

RL.6.6

Explain how an author develops the narrator's or speaker's point of view.

Preview

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Name Date

Beyond the Pencil Line

Analyze how a narrator’s words and reactions shape a story.

Read and Notice

Read the story. Notice what the narrator reports and how the narrator interprets those events.

Beyond the Pencil Line

1Before our hiking group left, I traced our planned trail so firmly that the pencil nearly tore the paper. Up to Granite Lookout, lunch, then down before three. I had volunteered to carry the route sheet. For once, I wanted to be the person everyone followed instead of the person someone waited for.

2At the first junction, our adult leader, Ms. Vega, stopped beside a closure notice. Loose rocks had blocked the upper trail. She checked the posted map and chose an open, marked route through the valley. It would bring us back on time but miss the lookout. My careful pencil line had become a useless scratch. Beside me, Sora folded her route sheet into her pocket.

3“We might hear the creek from down there,” Sora said. She sounded pleased, which irritated me more than the closure. Of course she could enjoy a substitute; she hadn’t spent last night studying the turns. I slid my sheet into its plastic sleeve without answering. Ms. Vega counted the group, then led us onto the valley trail.

4The trail narrowed between tall ferns. Sora stopped, and I nearly walked into her backpack. Another delay, I thought. Then she pointed to a broken strap dragging beneath my pack. “That’ll catch on something,” she said. She held the pack steady while I secured it. Her own loose lace stayed untied until my strap was fixed.

5Farther down, Ms. Vega paused at a safe clearing beside the creek. I kept checking my watch, although we were ahead of schedule. Sora crouched near a stone where water divided into two streams and joined again. I crouched too. For several minutes, I forgot to compare where we were with where we were supposed to be.

6On the return trail, Sora asked whether I was disappointed about the lookout. “Some,” I said. I almost added that the whole hike had been spoiled, but the words no longer fit. Instead, I showed her where the valley path rejoined our original route. This time, I left room for her finger beside mine.

7At home, I drew the valley trail on the route sheet with a lighter hand. Beside the clearing, I added a small mark that wasn’t on the printed map. I didn’t erase the line to the lookout. I still wanted to go there, just not at the cost of overlooking everything else.

1.
How does the first-person narration shape the reader’s understanding of the hike?
  • A. It explains each hiker’s private reasons for choosing the valley.
  • B. It presents the route change through one hiker’s hopes and reactions.
  • C. It presents the leader’s decisions without personal interpretation.
  • D. It reveals Sora’s thoughts before the narrator notices her actions.
2.
Underline the sentence that gives direct access to a private hope of the narrator, rather than an observable action or spoken statement.

Beside me, Sora folded her route sheet into her pocket.Ms. Vega counted the group, then led us onto the valley trail.“We might hear the creek from down there,” Sora said.For once, I wanted to be the person everyone followed instead of the person someone waited for.

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