Flashback Teacher Resources

How did we get here? How did this happen? Flashbacks interrupt the current action in a story to portray events that happened prior to the events currently unfolding in a story.

Flashbacks are an effective literary device for engaging readers and foreshadowing the storyline/plot. When teaching literary analysis, guide learners to identify flashbacks, revealing the past to help explain the present. Find ideas for collaborating as a class or in small groups to establish chronology in a story. Hone students’ critical thinking skills by identifying flashbacks and their relation to the present action in the narrative. Determining how earlier events influenced current events in the story will also foster critical thinking and interpretation. A Lesson Before Dying, The Joy Luck Club, and A Bridge to Terabithia are great texts for investigating authors' use of flashbacks.  

Showing 102 resources
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Activity
Texas Instruments

Collaborating on Flashback

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Explore a flashback in a story with readers. They will read a story, identify the flashback in the story, then evaluate how the flashback is used. Using the NoteFolio, students analyze the meaning and merit of a flashback in a story....
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Incorporating Flashbacks in Narrative Text - The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis

For Teachers 9th - 11th
After watching a video segment of an interview with one of the survivors of the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, young writers create an original narrative that utilizes flashback to tell the L.D. Cox's story. Writers determine who or...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Flashbacks

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Learners create a piece of original fiction utilizing flashbacks. Students define and identify the use of flashbacks in the novel Holes. Definitions and examples are recorded in student journals. They use their examples as springboard...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Understanding Flashback

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Student practice using the element of flashback. In this flashback lesson plan, middle schoolers first discuss how this element is used and how it adds to a story. They complete their own creative writing piece and include a flashback...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Narrative Writing

For Teachers 5th
Fifth graders study narrative writing. In this language arts lesson, 5th graders review how an author uses vivid verbs, imagery, and adjectives to capture reader's attention. Students explore literary devices of foreshadowing, flashback...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Flashback Sequence

For Teachers 2nd Standards
Second graders practice recalling the sequence of events in a story. For this sequencing lesson, 2nd graders listen to the story, A Chair for My Mother and identify each flashback that occurs in the text. Students chart the sequence of...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Chronological Order of Events in a Story with a Flashback

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders read the story Leaving Home and put the story events in chronological order. In this chronological order lesson plan, 4th graders use index cards and refer to the flashbacks in the story.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Understanding Flashback

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students are introduced to the definition of "flashback" in that writers use it when they want to reveal to readers something that happened in the past. Then Students write a short story using a flashback scene and then move back to the...
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Instructional Video3:07
PBS

One Hundred Years of Solitude | The Great American Read

For Students 6th - 12th Standards
One Hundred Years of Solitude introduces readers to magic realism. Told in a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Nobel Prize-winning novel is a candidate for The Great American Read program and aficionados...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Reading Comprehension 4: Level 8

For Students 8th - 10th
Need a quick but comprehensive reading strategies exercise? Even your most reluctant readers will be engaged by the story of a nuclear reactor explosion at a top-secret Idaho base. After reading the short passage, learners answer nine...
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PPT
Curated OER

Literary Techniques

For Teachers 11th - 12th
Need to review literary terms/techniques with your class? The slides in this presentation define and give examples of 22 common literary terms. The PowerPoint could be used for AP test prep.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Sequence of a Story within a Story

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders read a story.  In this story sequencing lesson, 4th graders learn about the use of flashbacks in a story.  Students read Tell Me a Story, Mama and identify flashbacks in the story.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Of Mice and Men: Viewing Guide

For Teachers 8th - 12th
In this Of Mice and Men viewing guide worksheet, learners study movie terminology as they read brief descriptions and respond to 26 short answer questions as the watch the film based on Steinbeck's novel.
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Lesson Plan
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3
Learn NC

A Christmas Carol Chronology

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Which comes first? The Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, or Future? What clues can readers use to establish the chronology of A Christmas Carol? The tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, Marley, and Tiny Tim provides the text for an activity that...
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Lesson Plan
Library Sparks

Bridge to Terabithia: Library Lessons

For Teachers 5th - 7th
Foreshadowing, flashbacks, and imaginary places are the three topics of focus in this two-lesson packet written especially for the book, Bridge to Terabithia. Each lesson also comes with worksheets and activities to support student...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Lesson 3: Exception Questions in Stories with a Flashback

For Teachers 4th Standards
Fourth graders respond to a text using textual evidence to support their answers to questions. Students observe the teacher model a quick warm up on the chronological sequence of events from the passage, Leaving Home. In this literacy...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Understanding the Elements of Fiction

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Inform your class on the elements of fiction: themes, settings, characters, plots, dialogue, narration, flashback, clues, climax, resolution. They write the definitions of the terms on the worksheet provided.l Tip: Have them write a...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Native American Culture: The Light in the Forest

For Teachers 7th
Seventh graders read the novel, The Light in the Forest. They work in groups to research and create artifacts for a Native American Living Museum. They complete a Powerpoint presentation of their virtual museum to classmates.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Feeling Flashbacks

For Teachers 1st - 8th
Students share and express feelings in order to build a sense of class community. They participate in an activity entitled Mill and Mingle.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Feeling Flashbacks

For Teachers 1st - 5th
Students investigate feelings with their class.  In this feelings lesson, students mingle with their class and share a specific personal feeling with a random student.  Students record their experience in their journal.
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Unit Plan
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College Board

Choices and Consequences

For Students 7th Standards
Paul Fisher, the main character in Tangerine, comes to see that it's the choices in life that lead to the consequences that make all the difference. A unit study of Bloor's young adult novel leads readers down this same path. 
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PPT
Curated OER

Plot Structure PowerPoint Presentation

For Teachers 8th - 12th
A plot diagram helps readers visualize the structure of a story. Here’s a presentation that expands upon the traditional diagram and examines plot components (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution) as well as...
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Unit Plan
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

In the Skin of a Monster

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Kathryn Barker's In the Skin of A Monster explores how a school massacre impacts a community. Unfortunately, the events depicted are all too familiar to many. This teacher's guide for Barker's novel offers activities that enable readers...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Story vs. Plot

For Teachers Higher Ed
Students, after reading and discussing the two texts by Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People" and "Greenleaf," analyze the plot, tone, characters, themes and setting in each story. They write their own short stories dealing with a...

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Flashback