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Point of View in Literature 4th Grade

Florida - Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking: ELA.4.R.1.3
Identify the narrator’s point of view and explain the difference between a narrator’s point of view and character perspective in a literary text.

4th Grade Reading - Point of View in Literature Lesson

Point of View

Point of View: In narrative writing and poetry, the point of view is the lens through which readers "see" the characters and events. Most stories and poems are written in either first-person point of view or third-person point of view. To determine a text's point of view, you must first determine who the narrator, or storyteller, is.

Point of View: FIRST PERSON

When a story or poem is written in the first person —

The narrator is telling the story from his or her own point of view. Everything the reader sees is through the "eyes" of the narrator.

The narrator is most often a character in the story, usually (but not always) the main character. Everything directly shared with the reader carries the opinions, thoughts, and feelings of only this one character.

The story is told with first-person pronouns like I, we, me, us, my, mine, and ours even outside of dialogue. Names and third-person pronouns (he, she, they, etc.) are used for any other characters the narrator describes.

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Point of View: THIRD PERSON

When a story is written in the third person —

The narrator is not a character in the story, but an unnamed speaker telling the story of a character or characters and the events that happen to him/her or them.

The narrator could be "all-knowing"—aware of all the characters' thoughts, feelings and experiences. Or, the narrator could know only the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of one or a few main characters.

The story is not told with first-person pronouns like I, although these pronouns are often used in the dialogue of specific characters. Instead, it is told with the names or descriptions of characters and pronouns like he, she, they, him, her, and them.

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Go to the next page to practice working with point of view.

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