In order to understand plot structure, it may help to break stories down into pictures or images. A comic strip is a story told in the form of a cartoon in which scenes or stages of the story are captured in frames. Frames are pictures of a scene or action, which, when put together in sequence, describe the plot of a story.
Each image represents an action or a situation. You can add speech to the frame if you want your characters to have a conversation. You can focus on just one character in a frame if you would like this character to be the main focus.
Discuss
Can you think of any well-known stories, fairy tales or nursery rhymes? Name one, and summarise its plot in a few sentences.
Understand
1. In groups or pairs, choose one of the stories you just discussed with your classmates and reduce it down to four main steps (situation, complication, problem or crisis point, resolution).
2. (a) Consider the well-known story of ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’. Can you sort the frames into the correct order?
