Source: Buehl, D. (2009). Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning (Third ed. , pp. 62-64). International Reading Association Inc.
"Character Quotes" is a simple pre-reading activity used to get students thinking about character personalities. Students are put into groups and then presented with quotes from a character from the soon to be started text. Students make a list of words and phrases describing what they believe the character's personality is like from these quotes. Students then present their list and their reasoning. The teacher compiles this list on the board/overhead/etc, and then lets the students know that all of these quotes are from the same character. Then students make a personality profile for the character. After reading the text, students go back to their profile and discuss what they were right/wrong about, what they learned from the quotes, and what they might want to change about their profile. Students then find other quotes from the character to complete his/her representation. Discussion between or during each part about first impressions, presented self, and always why students felt what they said about a character are recommended.
Comments (2)
Sounds like a pretty interesting way to build on character analysis. It also inspires close readings so that they can find the quotes to begin with. This would also help with critical analysis, since they have to figure out who the characters are, based off of the quotes.
Posted by James Clevenger | March 3, 2010 4:28 PM
Posted on March 3, 2010 16:28
I really like this idea because you can really understand a character by the way they word their sentences, the language and just what they say. This would be a great lesson to get to really know the characters before reading.
Posted by Lyndsey Tice | March 17, 2010 9:41 PM
Posted on March 17, 2010 21:41