There are several activities that can help students better read and comprehend narrative texts. My own strategy is to separate out the major elements of the narrative and have students work separately on each element.

First, I have them do a timeline of all the events that occur in the narrative. I have them break out the differences between the actual order of events, the order in which the readers discover events and the order in which the characters discover events.

Next, I have them do summaries for each character of what happens to that character.

Finally, I have them look at point of view.

Fopr all of these, they work in peer groups and present the results of the peer group inquiries to the class, sometimes in expository form and sometimes by rewriting the narrative creatively from a different point of view or with a focus on a minor character.