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will explain that sometimes in a story a character may remember (or the author may tell) something that happened before the story. This is called a flashback. I will read the short passage “The Big Game” and talk about the flashback in the story. For example: "In the story, the author is playing in a basketball game and it seems like their team is doing well. Then he remembers a game last year when he did not get to play and the team did poorly. This happened before the story. It is a flashback or something he remembers from before. It is important to understand that flashbacks are not happening now. They are meant to give us a better understanding of the story." I will chart the sequence of events in the story, charting the flashback first, since it happened before the story. (Direct Teaching Teacher Example Chart is provided in Teacher and Student Materials below.) I will make the distinction between events that happened in the past and events that are happening now in the story.

TIP: To provide visual context, create a timeline and model the sequencing of a flashback on the timeline during the Direct Teaching.

Ask: How did I know the sequence of events in the story? Students should respond that you read the story and identified that there was a flashback, or an event that came before the story. You identified that event as happening first and then ordered the rest of the events in the order in which they happened in the story.

will read A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams. We will identify the flashback in the story and distinguish between events that happened before the story (past) and events that are happening in the story (present).

will write down the sequence of events of the story A Chair for My Mother, putting the flashback in the correct sequential order with the rest of the book.