4 Ways to Help Your Students Understand Complex Plots

For many students, it is not the reading that is the problem, it is being able to fully understand the intricacies of a complex plot. Whether your students are struggling to comprehend a Shakespeare play or something a little more rudimentary, understanding a plot can be difficult for many children. The list below suggests four useful tools teachers can use to help their students better understand complex plots. 

1. Storyboarding

If your class is having difficulties understanding a plot while reading, it is time to try teaching in a different medium. Storyboarding allows you to bring art into the process of storytelling. Even if you aren’t naturally the most talented artist, you can still create a storyboard to help your students understand complex plots. You could even incorporate the storyboarding process into your lesson plan. You could ask all of your students to contribute to the storyboard to help them better understand the plot through the process of creating a storyboard. Storyboarding is also a great way to cater to your students who naturally learn visually. 

2. Ask Questions 

It is not uncommon for students to understand more than they think they do. A great way of prompting your students to realize how much they already understand about a complex plot is simply to ask questions about it. You don’t have to ask your questions in a formal format like a test. You could try more conversational methods to prompt students to develop a deeper understanding of the text. Some examples of questions you could ask include: 

• Why do you think this character behaved in this way? 
• How would you feel if you were in this character’s position and why? 
• If you were living in the world of the text, what do you think you would be doing right now? 

Asking questions similar to those listed above encourage the student to feel more involved in the text. This stops the narrative and the plot from seeming complex or abstract. 

3. Make a Game Out of It 

Complex plots can be intimidating for students, and one of the best ways to combat this is to make a game out of it. One game that you can create to help your students better understand a complex plot is ‘pick a card’. You can write specific plot points on cards and have a student stand up and describe this card while the other students guess which plot point is being described. To make this game a little harder, you can tell your students they are not allowed to use character names or any other telling details. 

4. Act it Out

If your students are struggling with particular plot points, why not get them to act out a couple of scenes or chapters? Encouraging your students to act out scenes they are particularly struggling with is a great way to enhance comprehension. Hearing the narrative being spoken aloud will enhance comprehension. Acting out a plot point will also help your students feel the tone, pace, and mood of the scene. This helps to bring greater weight to the narrative, making the story feel more relatable to students.