Brooke Taylor & Dr. Corapi
Literary element: Point of View
DEFINITION:
Point of view is the perspective from which a story is told.
VARIATIONS
 First Person is where one of the characters tells the story. The story is written with
the pronoun, I.
o Example: I like to play with the ball. I bounce it hard. I let it drop. It makes
a funny noise and I smile. I never want to stop playing with it.
 Third-Person Limited is a story told through a character. The story is limited because
the reader only gets one perspective of the events.
o Example: Brooke likes to play with the ball. It makes her happy. She
bounces it hard. She drops the ball and smiles. She plays with the ball all
the time.
 Third-Person Omniscient is where the reader can observe all thought and feelings of
characters in the story.
o Example: Brooke was thinking how happy she was to play with the ball.
She did not realize that Dr. Corapi wanted to play, too. Dr. Corapi thought
that Brooke didn't like her so she went to go read a book.
 Third-Person Objective is when a story only tells what can be see or heard. The
reader cannot tell what either character is thinking or feeling.
o Example: Brooke played with a ball. Dr. Corapi read a book. They did not
talk to each other until they left and said goodbye.
SAMPLE MINI-LESSON IDEAS
Read Duck! Rabbit! as a class read-aloud
Discussion questions:
 How does the author show the different points of view in this very simple text?
 How does the book design show points of view?
Read I Am a Dog, I Am a Cat as an alternate read aloud. Do some Point of View
improvs to help you “put on the mask” of another character and speak from their point of
view:
 You are an egg. the person holding you approaches a pot of hot boiling water. What
do you say?
 You are a book and you want everyone in your class to read you. How can you
advertise yourself?
 You are a cell phone with buttons worn from constant texting. Your owner pulls you
from his pocket for the 100th time that day. What do you say to make him stop?
Read the text set. Sort the text set into categories having something to do with point of
view. Share your categories with the class.
With a partner, write a text that shows a difference of point of view.
Brooke Taylor & Dr. Corapi
MENTOR TEXTS THAT HELP TEACH POINT OF VIEW
Picture books:
 Voices in the Park (Anthony Browne)
 Duck! Rabbit! (Amy Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld)
 I am the Dog, I am the Cat (Donald Hall & Barry Moser)
 The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! (Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith)
 It Looked Like Spilt Milk (Charles Shaw)
 The Tale of Two Beasts (Fiona Roberton)
 Dear Mrs. LaRue (Mark Teague)
 The Secret Knowledge of Grown-ups (David Wisniewski)
 The Secret Knowledge of Grown-ups: The Second File (David Wisniewski)
 The Big Red Lollipop (Rukhsana Khan & Sophie Blakall)
 Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed (Mo Willems)
 The Little Red Pen (Janet Stevens & Susan Stevens Crummel)
 Sweet Tooth (Marge Palatini & Jack E. Davis)
 Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I don’t) (Barbara Bottner & Michael Emberley
 The Enemy (Davide Cali & Serge Bloch)
 I Hate English! (Ellen Levine & Steve Björkman)
Novels:
 Bull Run (Paul Fleishman)
 Seedfolks (Paul Fleishman)
 I’ll Be Watching You (Pamela Porter)
 Witness (Karen Hesse)
 The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane (and other Polly Horvath novels)
Nonfiction
 Terezin: Voices from the Holocaust (Ruth Thomson)
Poetry:
 Mirror Mirror (Marilyn Singer & Josee Masse)
Book Pairs:
 The School is not White! (Doreen Rappaport & Curtis James) and Separate is Never
Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation (Duncan Tonatiuh)
 When My Name was Keoko (Linda Sue Park) and So Far From the Bamboo Grove
(Yoko Kawashima Watkins)