Teaching Character With Particular Units and Texts

Previously we discussed prereading instruction which prepares students to work with characterization. This blog will describe how to create a context that directs and rewards students' attention to character during reading.

Inquiry Units

Centered around essential questions – timeless and debatable issues that draw us to literature - inquiry units help students to get the conceptual (what) and the procedural (how) together. A unit context not only focuses students' attention as they read but helps them develop an understanding of fundamental characteristics of effective argumentative writing since the culmination would likely be a written argument of judgment that assesses characters in regards to the big question or an argument providing an extended definition of, say a good friend, using examples from all of the unit readings and the students' personal experiences.

A variety of essential questions would work well to keep the students' focused on character.

What makes a good parent, friend, teacher, hero, or leader?
What makes a person mature?
What is loyalty, courage, self-government, etc.?
What makes me me?



Using Autobiographical Writing Before Reading

Transfer (one of our goals) is fostered by having students write about relevant autobiographical experiences before they read, taking up issues that are relevant to stories without cueing particular readings of those stories. (Our classmates Amber and Abbie did just this in their lesson plan for Walk On. Way to go Ladies!) “Allowing students to write or discuss relevant, autobiographical experiences before reading helps students to make abstract rather than describing responses to characters” (internal vs external). "In addition, this type of writing assignment activates students' prior knowledge and teaches them that it is powerful and necessary to apply that prior knowledge.”

Personal reflection : I wonder... While these above assignments do help students to focus while they read, don't these assignments cause them to focus on what I see as important in the story and not what they might see as important? Won't these types of activities cause the student to think, “This book must be about friendship because the teacher is asking us to look at that idea and write about our friendships.” How does this fit in with what we have learned about reader response?

Using Character Response Sheets

Since story specific questions are unlikely to prepare student to understand more than the particular story they are reading, a set of questions that can be applied across stories is likely to be more useful. Character response sheets are not very complex, but they capture the heuristics for understanding character and can be used in lieu of reading check quizzes for assigned reading (helping us get away from the efferent type of questions we often ask for the sole purpose of making sure students are reading the assigned chapters.)

Response sheets depart from traditional instruction in important ways. Because they explicitly reinforce activities that precede their use, and because they can be used across stories, they foster transfer. To use them students must be alert for inference cues rather than waiting for teachers to highlight those cues through their questions. It assists students in internalizing the kinds of questions necessary to a sophisticated interpretation of character in literature and life.

Character response sheets ask students to give their preliminary impression of characters and to give specific instances of actions, language, thoughts, body language, and looks from the text which have triggered their initial impression. In subsequent days, weeks etc. students are to explain how their impression of the character has changed or been confirmed, again based on specific support from the actions, language, etc. in the text.

Using Drama

Short, scriptless dramas allow students to participate as actors rather than as an audience. Two types that support understanding of character follow:

In-Role Writing – By writing a diary entry as a particular character students make the character come alive using inference cues based on the character's thoughts and language. Be sure that prompts let students know who they are, what their situation is, what they will create, and how they will share it.

Press Conferences – Students play the role of a character while classmate reporters question them. Be sure to debrief the class focusing on what the students learned about the characters that made them respond the way they did and how they learned what they learned.