Illinois Grade 3 English

Use the scene to interpret “a mountain of papers”

The same word can be used in a direct description or as an imaginative comparison. Readers need the surrounding scene to decide how it works. This activity asks students to explain a nonliteral expression in ordinary language and connect that explanation with the text.

Curriculum reference: Illinois Learning Standards incorporating Common Core English Language Arts/Literacy, from the Illinois State Board of Education standards directory.

Illinois Grade 3 references for this activity

Illinois’s current English document includes Grade 3 expectations across reading, writing, language, speaking, and listening. The expectations selected here support this activity; use the whole document and the school’s sequence for wider coverage.

These are selected grade-level expectations from Illinois’s current English standards. Activity labels describe a teaching focus rather than reproduce complete requirements. Read the linked state document, including the reading, writing, language, speaking, and listening sections and grade-level progression, alongside the school’s curriculum sequence.

A worked Grade 3 reading and writing activity

This original classroom example is separate from official assessment questions.

Omar placed the class maps in a tall stack on his desk. “I have a mountain of papers to sort,” he said. Then he took a small group of maps from the top and began checking the names. In the first map, a mountain stood west of the river.

Try the activity

Compare the two uses of mountain. Explain which refers to a landform and which describes the papers nonliterally. Use details from the passage to support both decisions. Then replace the nonliteral expression with a literal description and explain what changes in the writing.

Follow the reasoning

In the final sentence, mountain refers to a landform shown in the map, located west of a river. In Omar’s spoken sentence, the object on his desk is a stack of maps. “A mountain of papers” emphasizes how large the stack seems; it does not mean a rocky landform has appeared on the desk. A literal replacement such as “many papers in a tall stack” preserves the practical idea while losing some of the expression’s exaggeration and imagery.

Notice what needs more practice

Nonliteral language is not automatically a mistake or a false report. Its meaning depends on how it is used. The phrase suggests a large amount, but it supplies no exact paper count and does not prove Omar cannot finish. The next sentence shows him beginning the work. Avoid deciding that every use of mountain is figurative: the map sentence supplies a geographic setting in which the ordinary landform meaning fits.

Grade 3 English worksheets

Choose printable practice that matches the skill being taught. Check the task, reading difficulty, and directions before assigning it; the collection is independently published.

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Use the next session to build independence

1. Read the sentence and the surrounding events.
2. Identify what the expression refers to in that scene.
3. Restate its meaning and explain whether the words are literal.

Create two sentences using river: one about a landform and another about “a river of people” moving through a doorway. Explain the second sentence without claiming that the people are made of water. Then search a complete grade-level story for a nonliteral expression and test the interpretation against its context. A dictionary can help with an unfamiliar word, but the reader still needs to decide which meaning fits this use. This comparison supports one language-in-literature focus rather than certify that the short passage represents all Grade 3 text demands.

For more general reading and writing resources, visit the Grade 3 English Online Center.

Illinois Grade 3 English: useful planning questions

Does a nonliteral expression give an exact quantity?

Not here. A mountain of papers suggests a large stack, but it does not state the number of papers. Use the passage for the meaning and avoid inventing a count.

Where are the complete state requirements?

Illinois’s current English document includes Grade 3 expectations across reading, writing, language, speaking, and listening. The expectations selected here support this activity; use the whole document and the school’s sequence for wider coverage. The school’s sequence also includes reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language work beyond this example.