• Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Foreshadowing, flashback, cliffhanger and red herring; The effect of narrative perspective and tense). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
• Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.

1. Which narrative technique matches this description? An ending to a chapter or episode that leaves the reader in suspense. (foreshadowing / red herring / flashback / cliffhanger) → cliffhangerPrompt: Does the technique look forward, look back, stop at a tense moment, or mislead?
2. Is the proposed answer correct? A story is told in the first person, present tense: "I open the door. Something moves." What is the main effect? → immediacy: we experience events with the narrator as they happen (yes, it is correct / no, it is not correct) → yes, it is correctPrompt: Who is telling the story, and when (present or looking back)?
3. Which narrative technique is used here? Standing on the stage, Leo suddenly remembered the first time he played the piano, aged six, his feet dangling above the pedals. (flashback / cliffhanger / foreshadowing / red herring) → flashbackPrompt: Does the moment hint at the future, return to the past, end on a question, or point to the wrong suspect?

• Read the first lines of a short text aloud and ask what students predict will happen and why.
• Share the objective: Narrative techniques: unreliable narrator, in medias res, frame narrative…. 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? A story told through letters, diary entries, emails or other documents.
• Step 1: Narrative techniques shape how and when readers learn the story, and how far they trust the teller.
• Step 2: epistolary: A story told through letters, diary entries, emails or other documents.
• Step 3: So the answer is: epistolary
• Answer: epistolary
• 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? Writing that imitates the flow of a character's thoughts, often jumping between ideas. (frame narrative / in medias res / epistolary / stream of consciousness) → stream of consciousnessPrompt: Think about who tells the story, in what form, and where the story starts.
2. Which narrative technique is used here? Snowed in at a mountain inn, a group of travellers take turns telling stories; most of the book is made up of these tales. (unreliable narrator / stream of consciousness / multiple narrators / frame narrative) → frame narrativePrompt: Is the form unusual (letters, thoughts), does the story start mid-action, sit inside another story, or have a narrator we can't trust?

• 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 matches this description? A story told through letters, diary entries, emails or other documents. (in medias res / stream of consciousness / epistolary / unreliable narrator) → epistolaryPrompt: Think about who tells the story, in what form, and where the story starts.
2. Which narrative technique is used here? The whole novel is made up of text messages and emails between two cousins on opposite sides of the world. (in medias res / frame narrative / epistolary / unreliable narrator) → epistolaryPrompt: Is the form unusual (letters, thoughts), does the story start mid-action, sit inside another story, or have a narrator we can't trust?

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/english/grade-11.