Small Moments Answer Key

This worksheet helps students take a single telling sentence and stretch it into five meaningful “small moments” that reveal emotion through micro-actions, body language, and subtle physical reactions. Instead of summarizing a feeling, students learn to slow the moment down and show the emotional experience beat by beat, which strengthens pacing and learner awareness of internal states. By requiring five distinct actions, the task encourages students to think creatively about how emotions manifest externally, making it ideal for modeling high-quality narrative detail. Teachers can use this worksheet to support struggling writers who default to telling, as well as to challenge stronger writers to develop layered, nuanced character moments that read authentically.

Curriculum Skills

Developing micro-moments to replace summarizing statements

Expanding emotional detail for richer internal and external characterization

Strengthening narrative pacing through purposeful slowdown

Describing characters using actions, gestures, and physical reactions

This worksheet is part of our Show, Don’t Tell Techniques Worksheets collection.