Story Elements Jeopardy

Character, setting, plot, conflict, theme, point of view: the reading-unit essentials as a free-to-copy game where the class buzzes in by phone.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

Copies all 30 clues into an editor of your own. Free, no account needed.

Every clue on this board

This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

Characters

$200
This is the term for the main character in a story.
What is the protagonist?
$400
This is the term for the character who works against the main character.
What is the antagonist?
$600
This is the term for how a character looks, acts, and speaks, which helps readers understand who they are.
What is characterization?
$800
This is the term for a character who changes in an important way by the end of the story.
What is a dynamic character?
$1,000
This is the term for a character who stays mostly the same throughout the story.
What is a static character?

Setting

$200
This story element tells readers where and when a story takes place.
What is the setting?
$400
This is the part of setting that tells readers when a story happens, such as during the summer or in the 1800s.
What is the time?
$600
This is the part of setting that tells readers where a story happens, such as a forest or a big city.
What is the place?
$800
This is the mood most likely created by a setting described as a dark, creaking house during a thunderstorm.
What is scary?
$1,000
This is the term for the overall feeling a story's setting creates in the reader, such as calm, tense, or eerie.
What is the mood?

Plot

$200
This is the part of the plot at the very beginning that introduces the characters and setting.
What is the exposition?
$400
This is the part of the plot where a problem first appears and the action starts to build.
What is the rising action?
$600
This is the part of the plot right after the story's most exciting or tense moment, where events start to slow down.
What is the falling action?
$800
This is the part of the plot at the very end where the problem is resolved and loose ends are tied up.
What is the resolution?
$1,000
This is the term for the plot structure that visually resembles a mountain, rising to a peak and then falling.
What is a story mountain?

Conflict

$200
This is the general term for the struggle or problem faced by the main character in a story.
What is a conflict?
$400
This type of conflict occurs when a character struggles against another character, such as a hero fighting a villain.
What is character versus character?
$600
This type of conflict occurs when a character struggles against a storm, an animal, or another force of nature.
What is character versus nature?
$800
This type of conflict occurs when a character struggles with their own doubts, fears, or decisions inside their own mind.
What is character versus self?
$1,000
This type of conflict occurs when a character struggles against rules or expectations set by their community.
What is character versus society?

Theme

$200
This story element is the central message, lesson, or big idea a story teaches about life.
What is the theme?
$400
This is a common theme found in stories where a character wrongly assumes someone is unfriendly just because of how they look, then learns to see past first impressions.
What is do not judge a book by its cover?
$600
This is a common theme found in stories where characters succeed by working together rather than alone.
What is teamwork?
$800
This is a common theme found in fables like The Tortoise and the Hare, about steady effort winning over natural talent.
What is slow and steady wins the race?
$1,000
This is the theme most likely taught by a story in which a poor character shares their last meal with a stranger and is rewarded with good fortune.
What is kindness is rewarded?

Point of View

$200
This point of view uses the pronouns I and me, as the narrator is a character in the story telling their own experience.
What is first person?
$400
This point of view uses the pronoun you, directly addressing the reader as if they are part of the story.
What is second person?
$600
This point of view uses pronouns like he, she, and they, with a narrator outside the story who can only describe what one character thinks and feels.
What is third person limited?
$800
This point of view uses pronouns like he, she, and they, with a narrator outside the story who knows the thoughts and feelings of every character.
What is third person omniscient?
$1,000
This is the term for a narrator who cannot be fully trusted to tell the events of a story accurately or honestly.
What is an unreliable narrator?

Final Jeopardy — Plot

This is the term for a story's turning point, the moment when the tension is at its highest.

What is the climax?

How to run this board

Story elements come up in every reading unit from third grade on, and this board gives each one its own category so you can see exactly which concepts have landed. Plot questions walk the mountain from exposition to resolution; conflict questions sort character-versus-character from character-versus-self and character-versus-nature.

Anchor the abstract questions in stories the whole class knows, whether that is a read-aloud or a fairy tale. Theme is the category to watch: if teams keep answering with topics instead of messages, that is tomorrow's mini-lesson.

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