Grade 5 English Language Arts | FL B.E.S.T. Standard: ELA.5.R.1.4
Explain how the narrator's point of view influences how events are described in a literary text.
By the end of this unit, students will be able to:
| Term | Definition | Student-Friendly Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Point of View (POV) | The perspective from which a story is told | WHO is telling the story and what they can see/know |
| Narrator | The voice that tells the story | The person or voice speaking to the reader |
| First Person | Story told by a character using "I" and "me" | When a character in the story tells their own story |
| Third Person Limited | Story told about characters (he/she) but only one character's thoughts are known | An outside narrator who can only read ONE character's mind |
| Third Person Omniscient | Story told about characters (he/she) with access to all characters' thoughts | An "all-knowing" narrator who can read EVERYONE's mind |
| Bias | A narrator's personal slant or limited perspective | When the narrator might not give the full or fair picture |
| POV | Pronouns | Who Tells? | What Can Reader Know? |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Person | I, me, my, we, us | A character in the story | Only that character's thoughts and experiences |
| Third Person Limited | he, she, they, him, her | Outside narrator focused on ONE character | One character's thoughts; others only from outside |
| Third Person Omniscient | he, she, they, him, her | All-knowing outside narrator | ALL characters' thoughts and feelings |
| Day | Focus | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | First Person POV | Identify first person using pronoun clues. Discuss what readers can/cannot know. Use Student Concept Worksheet. |
| 2 | Third Person Limited | Focus on "he/she" pronouns with limited access to thoughts. Compare to first person. |
| 3 | Third Person Omniscient | Identify when narrator knows multiple characters' thoughts. Compare all three POVs. |
| 4 | How POV Influences Story | Analyze how same events look different from different perspectives. Practice Worksheet. |
| 5 | Assessment | Administer FAST Format Quiz. Review and reteach as needed. |
Step 1: Find the pronouns (I/me = first person; he/she/they = third person)
Step 2: Ask "Whose thoughts do we hear?" If only one character = limited; if multiple = omniscient
This two-step process prevents students from stopping at just pronoun identification.
Take a familiar scene (fairy tale, movie, class event) and write or tell it from three different perspectives. Example: The Three Little Pigs from the wolf's first-person POV vs. third-person limited (focused on one pig) vs. omniscient (knowing all characters' thoughts). This shows how perspective changes the story.
After reading a first-person or limited third-person passage, ask: "What do we NOT know because of this POV?" This highlights the limitations of perspective. Example: In first person, we don't know what other characters are thinking - they might be lying to the narrator!
Create cards with short passages. Students sort them into First Person, Third Limited, and Third Omniscient piles. They must explain their reasoning using both pronoun evidence AND thought access evidence.
Correction: Third person can be limited OR omniscient. The key question is: "Do we hear multiple characters' thoughts?" If we only know what one character thinks/feels and see others only from the outside, it's third person limited.
Correction: Dialogue is when characters talk to each other (in quotes). POV is about who NARRATES the story. A third-person story can have a character say "I" in dialogue - that doesn't make it first person narration.
Correction: The narrator is WHO tells the story. POV is the perspective or angle from which they tell it. A first-person narrator tells from their own POV; an omniscient narrator tells from an all-knowing POV.
Correction: Second person is rare in fiction (mostly used in "choose your own adventure" books). Fifth graders should focus on first and third person. If asked about "you" in a passage, it's usually the narrator addressing the reader, not second person POV.
On the FAST assessment, point of view questions typically ask students to:
Key Strategy: Teach students to look beyond pronouns. The deeper skill is understanding what readers CAN and CANNOT know because of the chosen perspective.