• Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Tone and mood; Text structure (cause–effect, compare, problem–solution)). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
• Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.

1. We must act now. Every day we wait, another species disappears forever. This is not a problem for tomorrow. What is the writer's tone? (uncertain / humorous / urgent / relaxed) → urgentPrompt: What feeling do the word choices create?
2. The corridor stretched into darkness. Somewhere, water dripped. A door, which had been closed a moment ago, now stood half open. What is the mood? (calm and sleepy / funny and silly / tense and eerie / cheerful and bright) → tense and eeriePrompt: What feeling do the word choices create?
3. Sunlight spilled across the meadow, bees hummed lazily among the clover, and somewhere a child was laughing. What is the mood? (gloomy / angry / threatening / peaceful and happy) → peaceful and happyPrompt: What feeling do the word choices create?

• Read the first lines of a short text aloud and ask what students predict will happen and why.
• Share the objective: Foreshadowing, flashback, cliffhanger and red herring. Read the success criteria together.

• Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
• Example: Which narrative technique matches this description? An ending to a chapter or episode that leaves the reader in suspense.
• Step 1: Writers control time and suspense with techniques such as foreshadowing, flashback, cliffhangers and red herrings.
• Step 2: cliffhanger: An ending to a chapter or episode that leaves the reader in suspense.
• Step 3: So the answer is: cliffhanger
• Answer: cliffhanger
• Pause after each step and ask a student to say what comes next.

• Do these together. Students try each step on whiteboards before you reveal it.
• Use the hints as prompts rather than giving the answer.

1. Which narrative technique matches this description? A scene that jumps back to events that happened before the main story. (foreshadowing / red herring / cliffhanger / flashback) → flashbackPrompt: Does the technique look forward, look back, stop at a tense moment, or mislead?
2. Which narrative technique is used here? The smell of the sea took her back twenty years, to a summer when she and her brother built a raft from driftwood. (red herring / cliffhanger / flashback / foreshadowing) → flashbackPrompt: Does the moment hint at the future, return to the past, end on a question, or point to the wrong suspect?

• Students work on the student sheet. Circulate and check the first two answers of every student early.
• Students who finish: write a question of their own for a partner, with the answer.

The 6 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

• Two questions on their own. Sort answers into got it / nearly / not yet to plan the next lesson.

1. Which narrative technique is used here? She turned the key, the door swung open — and someone was already inside. END OF CHAPTER 4. (red herring / cliffhanger / foreshadowing / flashback) → cliffhangerPrompt: Does the moment hint at the future, return to the past, end on a question, or point to the wrong suspect?
2. Which narrative technique matches this description? An ending to a chapter or episode that leaves the reader in suspense. (cliffhanger / foreshadowing / flashback / red herring) → cliffhangerPrompt: Does the technique look forward, look back, stop at a tense moment, or mislead?

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/english/grade-8.