🌑 The Night the Lights Went Out
Students read an original 850-word narrative article about a fictional 47-hour blackout in Rotterdam. The story follows paramedic Eva Kuiper, restaurant owner Malik El-Haddad, and retired teacher Johanna Vos as the city copes without electricity and discovers unexpected community bonds. All four narrative tenses — past simple (main events), past continuous (background/scene), past perfect (earlier events), and past perfect continuous (duration before key events) — are woven naturally throughout the text. The interactive game presents 10 context-based sentences where students choose the correct narrative tense.
Lesson Plan
- 3 warm-up questions about power cuts and dependence on technology
Key Vocabulary
Grammar Points
- Past simple: main events in sequence (She opened the door)
- Past continuous: background/scene (It was raining when she arrived)
- Past perfect: earlier event before the story (She had already left)
- Past perfect continuous: duration before key event (He had been waiting for an hour)
- Storytelling formula: scene (continuous) → event (simple) → flashback (perfect) → lead-up (perfect continuous)
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