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Quiz & test questions Grade 4 English Language Arts

Narrative Craft Quiz: The Storm on Quillmere Brook

A 20-point grade 4 quiz on narrative technique, using a short original flood story to test time phrases, sensory detail, dialogue punctuation, and story endings.

Objectives

  1. Students will identify the time phrases that carry a narrative forward in order.
  2. Students will punctuate a line of dialogue correctly inside a narrative sentence.
  3. Students will write a story ending that uses a sensory detail and a time phrase.

Vocabulary

Key words: narrative, time phrase, dialogue, sensory detail, brook

Teacher overview

This quiz is worth 20 points and uses one short original story about a fictional brook that rises after a night of rain. Six items ask students to find narrative technique in the model, and four ask them to write the same techniques into new sentences, so the quiz tests reading a story and building one. The misconception this quiz targets is the belief that a flooded brook is filled only by the rain that lands on it, when the water arrives from every slope and ditch that drains toward it, a point the story's second sentence makes plainly. Allow 40 minutes.

Narrative Craft Quiz: The Storm on Quillmere Brook — Grade 4 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Assessment

Read the story. Then answer items 1 through 10. Quillmere Brook and the family in the story are made up for this quiz.

The Night the Brook Came Up

The rain started before supper. It fell on the hills above our house, on the Ridley farm, and into every ditch that runs down to Quillmere Brook. By eight o'clock the brook sounded wrong. It was not the soft sound I fall asleep to. It was a low roar, like a truck that would not stop.

Dad pulled on his boots. "Get the flashlight," he said. "We are moving the chickens."

We ran down the wet slope. My socks were soaked before I reached the coop. The water had already crossed the low path, and it pulled at the fence posts. The air smelled like cut grass and mud.

Later, from the porch, we watched the brook take the footbridge apart board by board. Mom said every hill above us was draining into that one brook.

By morning the water had dropped back. A line of leaves and brown foam showed how high it had come. Dad drove a stake into the bank at that line. "Now we know," he said.

  1. List the four time phrases the writer uses to move the story forward. Put them in the order they appear. (2 points)
  2. Which sentence gives the reader the strongest sound detail? (2 points)
    A. Dad pulled on his boots.
    B. It was a low roar, like a truck that would not stop.
    C. We ran down the wet slope.
    D. Dad drove a stake into the bank at that line.
  3. Write one detail from the story that tells how something felt or smelled. (2 points)
  4. Rewrite this sentence so that Dad's words appear as dialogue, punctuated correctly: Dad told us to get the flashlight. (2 points)
  5. The writer says the rain fell on the hills, on the farm, and into every ditch before saying anything about the brook. What does that detail explain? (2 points)
  6. Which event happened first in the story? (2 points)
    A. Dad drove a stake into the bank.
    B. The family moved the chickens.
    C. The footbridge came apart.
    D. The water dropped back.
  7. Write one sentence that could be added right after the family reaches the coop. Include a sound the writer has not already used. (2 points)
  8. Write one line of dialogue that Mom could say from the porch. Punctuate it correctly. (2 points)
  9. Write a time phrase that could open a new paragraph set two days after the storm. (2 points)
  10. Write a three-sentence ending for this story, set one week later. Use one sensory detail and one time phrase. (2 points)

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: Before supper, by eight o'clock, later, and by morning. Award full credit only when all four appear in that order.
  2. Answer: B, the low roar sentence. It is the only choice that describes what the brook sounded like, while the other three describe actions.
  3. Answer: Accept any sensory detail from the story, such as the soaked socks or the air that smelled like cut grass and mud.
  4. Answer: "Get the flashlight," Dad said. Accept either order, such as Dad said, "Get the flashlight." Full credit requires quotation marks around the spoken words, a capital letter to start them, and a comma separating them from the tag.
  5. Answer: It explains why the brook rose so fast, because water from the whole slope above the house drained into that one brook. Accept any answer naming the wider land as the source of the water.
  6. Answer: B, the family moved the chickens. That happens at eight o'clock, before the footbridge came apart, before the water dropped, and before the stake went in.
  7. Answer: Accept any single sentence set at the coop that includes a sound not already in the story, such as the chickens' noise, the wind, or rain drumming on the coop roof.
  8. Answer: Accept any line of dialogue that fits the porch moment and carries correct punctuation, such as "The bridge is going," Mom said. Full credit requires quotation marks, correct capitalization, and a comma or end mark before the tag.
  9. Answer: Accept any time phrase that fits a jump of two days, such as "Two days later" or "On Monday afternoon."
  10. Answer: Accept any three sentences set one week later that include at least one sensory detail and at least one time phrase, and that follow from the story's events. A proficient response returns to the stake, the bridge, or the brook rather than starting a new plot.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students the story with the four time phrases already circled so item 1 becomes a copying task, and provide a punctuation model card showing one line of dialogue with the quotation marks, comma, and capital letter labeled. Accept two sentences instead of three for item 10.

Extension

Ask these students to rewrite the fourth paragraph from Mom's point of view, keeping every event the same but changing which details the narrator notices. Then have them mark one sentence where the change of narrator forced a change of sensory detail.

ELL supports

Pre-teach brook, coop, stake, and foam with quick sketches, and note that stake here is a post driven into the ground. Provide a strip of time phrases in English for students to choose from in item 9, and allow item 10 to be told aloud to a partner before it is written.

Extensions

Have students write the same night as a short news report instead of a story, then compare the two versions and mark which sensory details had to be dropped. The comparison shows why narrative writing keeps the smells, sounds, and small actions that a report leaves out.