Runyan 4: 6(B) Character Interactions

Reading/ Comprehension of Literary Text/ Fiction Students understand, make inferences, draw conclusions about the structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from text to support their understanding
K	1	2	3	4	5
8(B) describe main characters in the story and the reasons for their actions	9(B) describe main characters in the story and the reasons for their actions and feelings	9(B) describe main characters in works of fiction, including their traits, motivations, and feelings	Describe the interaction of characters including their relationships and the changes they undergo Third 8(B) Fourth 6(B)		Explain the roles and functions of characters in various plots, including relationships and conflicts
describe the interaction of characters describe the interaction of characters including their relationships describe the interaction of characters including the changes they undergo

Activities:

Here are a few ideas for demonstrating how to look at characters in a story.

after reading, design a slide show that presents the characters (their feelings, traits and motivations) and add sentences (evidence) from the story
reader's notebook: t-chart showing the feelings/traits on one side and the evidence from the text on the other. Keeping this running record of their feelings will help illustrate how their feelings change from the beginning to the end and also highlight the events that led to the change....see picture.
Linda Hoyt RATT : Character Development lesson using the story Snowflake Bentley
Four window flip book : create a foldable (Dinah Zike) with 4 windows. On the outside of the windows write...say, think, feel and do. Under the window the students will add what they think the character would say, think, feel or do. They could use text evidence as well...see picture
Character Trait person : Using paper plates, yarn and index cards make a person. The plate will be the head, the yarn will be the body and the index cards will be attached to the string to show the character traits.....see picture
What is your Heart like? after reading, on paper cut out hearts list traits that describe what a character.
Discuss whether a trait is positive / negative as it ciomes up in reading.

Character Traits

Google Character Traits and you will find endless lists of traits for you to reference.
Read Aloud Think Together

Create a Bubble Map of a character's personality traits. To encourage the students to begin supporting their conclusions with evidence you can.......write personality trait on the bubble and provide evidence from the text behind the bubble (see pictures)
Provide a set of traits that describe a few characters in the book. Ask the students to sort those traits and tell which character they describe

FEELINGS/EMOTIONS:

You can find the emotion cards in your First Class. Curr. & Inst - Elementary Langusge Arts - Curriculum - Fluency Activities - Character Traits (some are traits but most are feelings)
Create a Bubble Map (if a character experiences several feelings in one text) of a character's feelings. To encourage the students to begin supporting their conclusions with evidence you can.......write feeling on the bubble and provide evidence from the text behind the bubble (see pictures)
Create an ongoing Tree Map of feelings including 4 basic emotions ( see pictures). As you read together and you discover new words add them to the chart. You can also discuss the degree of the emotion. For example: annoyed and furious fall under mad, but the degree of anger is very different. This will help the students be more articulate with their writing, explanations and understand more in their reading.

Anchor Activities:

Character Trait person : Using paper plates, yarn and index cards make a person. The plate will be the head, the yarn will be the body and the index cards will be attached to the string to show the character traits.....see picture
What is your Heart like? after reading, on paper cut out hearts list traits that describe what a character.
Four window flip book : create a foldable (Dinah Zike) with 4 windows. On the outside of the windows write...say, think, feel and do. Under the window the students will add what they think the character would say, think, feel or do. They could use text evidence as well...see picture

Possible Test Questions:

Runyan 4