• 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. (red herring / foreshadowing / 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 switches between two first-person narrators in alternating chapters. What is the main benefit? → readers see the same events from two viewpoints (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? Everyone suspects the gardener, who was seen near the safe with muddy boots, but he was only fixing a leaking pipe. (foreshadowing / red herring / cliffhanger / flashback) → red herringPrompt: 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? A story told within another story. (frame narrative / epistolary / in medias res / stream of consciousness) → frame narrativePrompt: Think about who tells the story, in what form, and where the story starts.
2. Which narrative technique is used here? The narrator insists he is calm and reasonable, yet he describes shouting at strangers and forgetting whole days. (multiple narrators / epistolary / in medias res / unreliable narrator) → unreliable narratorPrompt: 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. (multiple narrators / epistolary / stream of consciousness / 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 narrator insists he is calm and reasonable, yet he describes shouting at strangers and forgetting whole days. (in medias res / unreliable narrator / epistolary / frame narrative) → unreliable narratorPrompt: 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.