Many of us have read stories were one character narrates all of the events. This type of story gets narrated in that character’s point of view which can take many forms. When you assign students to novels, they should learn how to discern the story’s point of view. To reinforce this skill, you can use point of view worksheets.
Point of View Worksheets
Types of point of view
Before providing point of view practice, explain what this is to your students. Point of view is the perspective from which an author tells his story. Students need to understand this concept using point of view 4th grade, point of view 3rd grade, and worksheets for other levels to effectively analyze any literary work.
Second, first, and third-person point of view worksheets improve the critical thinking skills of students to help them better understand the author’s purpose and increase their skill of identifying potential biases. Your point of view activities should also emphasize the different types of points of view:
First Person
The main feature of this type is that the main character uses words like I, me and we. It’s as if the main character narrates the story. An author can also create this viewpoint for the reader through a fictional narrator.
There are many advantages in using this point of view, one of which is that it’s the easiest to recognize. It also enables the writer to create a deeper depth for his thoughts through the experiences of the story’s characters. Many of today’s successful young writers who used this writing style have achieved some high degree of success.
Second Person
This type of point of view puts the reader right into the story by using words like you or your. Writers use this type when they want to place the reader within the actual story. Doing this forces the readers to imagine themselves in the situations created by the author. Because of the difficulty of sustaining the story throughout its length, this form isn’t commonly used in fiction novels.
Third Person
Stories written in the third person present an outsider’s point of view by using words like she, he, and they. The style is prevalently used in fairy tales. There are two main ways that authors use this point of view:
- For the omniscient style, the author writes from an outsider’s point of view while offering the perspective of many characters.
- For the limited style, the author writes the story from an outsider’s perspective but the reader perceives the story based on the experiences of the main character.
There are some stories where the third person is further broken down to an objective point of view where the author acts only as a narrator.
Author’s Point of View Worksheets
The importance of point of view worksheets
Point of view isn’t limited to literary works as it’s also used in many applications. When it comes to studying the perspective of a narrator, this involves the reader’s concern with the relationship between the character telling the story and the characters referred to by the storyteller.
Learning to identify the narrator’s point of view through author’s point of view worksheets is an important reading skill. You should discuss the narrative perspectives of each story or text that you introduce before giving point of view worksheets. If you want your students to develop rapid improvement in identifying the narrator’s point of view, you should give them a lot of second, first, and third-person point of view worksheets.
Worksheets for point of view 4th grade, point of view 3rd grade, and for other levels are of a drill-style format. You can give your students enough practice in recognizing the narrative perspective of the story. Author’s point of view worksheets cover almost all types of points of view to include first-person, second-person, third-person, and all of their variations.
First and Third Person Point of View Worksheets
Teaching point of view to students
Identifying the story’s point of view can help your students understand the perspective of the text or story. You can teach point of view practice as early as in elementary school continuing to later years. You should see to it that when you’re teaching students about point of view, make sure that your students understand the various types and how they relate to the perspective of the story’s characters.
As much as possible, give them plenty of point of view activities both writing and reading using point of view worksheets. After these lessons, you can further reinforce your lessons with other creative assignments like:
Explaining the point of view
- Teach your students about the first-person perspective.
- Show them how to use the second-person to talk to the reader of the story.
- Differentiate between the types of third-person points of view.
- Provide students examples of each of the types of point of view. Practice using author’s point of view worksheets then ask them to provide their own examples.
- Explain how a point of view perspective can change or affect the story. Once the students have understood the concept of points of view, you can begin discussing the effect that point of view has on the story. You may also want to discuss how different people can perceive the same thing in different ways.
Identifying point of view
- After an exercise of reading a story as a class, ask the students to identify its point of view.
- Also, encourage students to see if there are other points of view in the story. Make them come up with a list of what other perspectives or characters the author could have used to tell the story.
- Reading more books to your class that show different perspectives. Some books might tell the story from the perspective of more than one character. Read these books in class then discuss the merits afterward.
Assigning more point of view activities to reinforce the concept
- You can roleplay scenarios with two varying points of view. This activity is very appropriate for elementary or middle-school students.
- Create a chart for points of view with various characters from the story. Give a reading assignment to your students and ask them to fill out their own chart.
- Let the students rewrite a text using a new point of view. You can give this assignment in groups or individually. Ask them to choose one different point of view to use.
