Success Homeschool

Year 6 English · Narrative point of view

Name: ______________________

Date: ____________

1. 'I pressed my ear to the door and held my breath.' What point of view is this?
- ☐ (a) First person
- ☐ (b) Third person
- ☐ (c) It has no narrator
2. 'Zara hoped nobody would notice the broken vase, while in the kitchen, her brother was already planning to tell Mum.' What kind of narrator is this?
- ☐ (a) A first-person narrator
- ☐ (b) An all-knowing third-person narrator
- ☐ (c) Zara telling her own story
3. What is one limit of a first-person narrator?
- ☐ (a) They cannot describe their own feelings.
- ☐ (b) They can only tell what they see, hear, think and feel.
- ☐ (c) They must use the word 'he'.
- ☐ (d) They always know the ending.
4. Which one-letter pronoun is the strongest clue that a story is told in first person?
5. Rewrite in first person: 'Leo grabbed his bag and ran.'
6. Which sentence is written in third person?
- ☐ (a) We laughed until our sides hurt.
- ☐ (b) My dog is the fastest in the street.
- ☐ (c) They raced each other to the old oak tree.
- ☐ (d) I could not believe my eyes.
7. What do we call the voice that tells a story? (one word)
8. Why might an author choose first person for a story about a nervous first day at a new school?
- ☐ (a) So readers feel close to the character's private worries
- ☐ (b) So readers know what every other student is thinking
- ☐ (c) Because first person is always shorter
- ☐ (d) So there is no main character

Answer sheet

1. First person — The narrator uses 'I' and 'my', so a character is telling the story.
2. An all-knowing third-person narrator — The narrator knows the thoughts of two different characters, so it is an all-knowing (omniscient) third-person narrator.
3. They can only tell what they see, hear, think and feel. — A first-person narrator cannot see inside other characters' minds.
4. I — First-person narrators refer to themselves as 'I'.
5. I grabbed my bag and ran. — 'Leo' becomes 'I' and 'his' becomes 'my'.
6. They raced each other to the old oak tree. — 'They' is a third-person pronoun. The others use 'we', 'my' or 'I'.
7. narrator — The narrator tells the story, either as a character (first person) or from outside (third person).
8. So readers feel close to the character's private worries — First person lets readers share the narrator's thoughts and feelings directly, like reading a diary.