Article
Other

Building Characters With Adversity

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
Extensive and very interesting article advising the reader on how to develop characters through adversity.
Lesson Plan
Other

Steilacoom Historical School District No. 1: Dramatic Justice [Pdf]

For Teachers 9th - 10th
In this instructional activity unit, young scholars investigate how justice is perceived and addressed in different cultures and times by examining literature from around the world. Texts examined include: The Tragedy of Romeo and...
Lesson Plan
CPALMS

Cpalms: Five Little Monkeys: Comparing and Contrasting

For Teachers Pre-K - K Standards
[Free Registration/Login Required] Five little monkeys sitting on a bed or sitting in a tree? In this close reading lesson, students will compare and contrast the actions of the characters in two of Eileen Christelow's beloved books,...
PPT
TES Global

Tes: Commedia Dell'arte: Prompt Cards for Practical Work

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
[Free Registration/Login Required] Two slideshows on Commedia Dell'Arte. Includes character cards, each with a picture of the character and a short description, and dramatic form cardss, also with pictures and explanations. The latter...
Unit Plan
CommonLit

Common Lit: Excerpt From Peter Pan: "When Wendy Grew Up"

For Students 7th - 8th
CommonLit.org is a wonderful resource to use in a Language Arts classroom. Each story or article is accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. In addition, students can click on words to see...
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Imagery (English Iii Reading)

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
In this lesson, students will learn how writers use words that allow them to create pictures in their heads. When a writer uses sensory details or words that appeal to our senses, then we are able to use our senses and our memory to...
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Analyze the Central Characters in Literary Text/fiction

For Students 7th - 9th Standards
In this lesson, students will learn some ways that writers reveal the complexity of their characters. By closely analyzing one author's characters, they will come to see how their words, actions, and interactions with one another can...
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Analyze Development of Plot Through Characters in Literary Text

For Students 5th - 7th Standards
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] Often characters are a driving force behind the plot. In this lesson, students will learn how complex, multilayered characters contribute to the development of a story's plot...
Lesson Plan
Read Works

Read Works: Lesson 1: Actions

For Teachers K - 1st Standards
In this resource, students will practice identifying and describing the actions of a character. Teachers will model these skills through the use of text and pictures from the story No, David! by David Shannon. Students will then draw a...
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: Speaking and Listening: Collaborative Conversations

For Teachers K - 1st Standards
Learners will partner read The Kite, by Alma Flor Ada. Then work together in small collaborative groups to describe the character of the mother, the children, or the kitten. Included in this lesson are video demonstrations, printable...
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: Who's at the Door? Use Images to Find Out!

For Teachers 1st - 3rd Standards
Students will use words acquired through reading to describe images (with adjectives) that demonstrate an understanding of characters in a story. The teacher will read Miss Nelson is Back which has great descriptors and will hold a class...
Activity
Georgia Department of Education

Ga Virtual Learning: Medieval Diary Multimedia Project [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th
This is a two-page PDF of the instructions for a Medieval Diary Multimedia Project. Students choose a character from an Arthurian legend and write a diary as the character. It provides instructions, topics for discussion, format choices,...
Unit Plan
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: Lorraine Hansberry: "A Raisin in the Sun": Analyzing Theme

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
In this interactive lesson, discover how literary techniques like setting, characterization, and conflict contribute to the overarching theme of a text. Through analysis of Lorraine Hansberry's iconic play A Raisin in the Sun, explore...
Lesson Plan
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: Novel Reflections on the American Dream

For Students 9th - 10th
This is a collection of five videos of Novel Reflections on the American Dream including Fitzgerald's Gatsby, Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath," Ann Petry's "The Street," and Gish Jen's "Traditional American."
Unit Plan
Thinkport Education

Thinkport: So Much Character! How Characters Help to Develop Theme

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
A module to practice skills that will identify how characterization helps the development of theme in a literary work.
Lesson Plan
British Library

British Library: Wilde's the Importance of Being Earnest: A Close Reading

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
For this lesson, students will consider several aspects of Oscar Wilde's most popular of comedies, "The Importance of Being Earnest". The success of this play is in part due to its examination of moral principles - in this case, the...
Lesson Plan
British Library

British Library: Bronte's Jane Eyre: The Figure of Bertha Mason

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This activity will encourage students to explore the character of Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester's first wife, through the lens of medical history. They will compare Charlotte Bronte's presentation of the character with the perspectives...
Lesson Plan
British Library

British Library: Bronte's Wuthering Heights: Who Is Heathcliff?

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This activity involves an exploration of the notoriously multifaceted character of Heathcliff, drawing on a range of sources that include the visual, literary, and historical. Students will reflect on Emily Bronte's depiction of...
Lesson Plan
British Library

British Library: Bronte's Wuthering Heights: Fantasy and Realism

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students will consider the two elements of fantasy and realism that combine to create the compelling narrative in Wuthering Heights (1847). In this activity, students will explore the significance of nature within the narrative, its...
Lesson Plan
British Library

British Library: Dickens's Great Expectations: The Gothic, the Uncanny

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This activity will introduce the idea of the uncanny and explore its expression within the narrative form of Charles Dickens's novel "Great Expectations".
Lesson Plan
British Library

British Library: Dickens's Great Expectations: Social Mobility

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This instructional activity will explore this theme of social mobility through a reading of extracts from Samuel Smiles's Self-Help (1859), the handbook that many young men in 19th-century Britain turned to in seeking advice as to how to...
Lesson Plan
British Library

British Library: Dickens's a Christmas Carol: Poverty, Money and Miserliness

For Teachers 9th - 10th
In this activity, students will consider the economic and political context that informs Charles Dickens's famous novella, A Christmas Carol.
Lesson Plan
British Library

British Library: Austen's Emma: Social Realism & the Novel

For Teachers 9th - 10th
In the course of the novel's development, Jane Austen was a significant contributor to the emergence of the modern novel as we know it today. The review of Emma in the Quarterly Review (October 1815) makes clear to a modern audience how...
Lesson Plan
British Library

British Library: Teaching Resources: Milton: Crime & Punishment in Paradise Lost

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Through exploring characterization and setting in Paradise Lost, students will reflect on how transgressive actions and their consequences are presented, with particular reference to Books I, II, IX, and X. Included in this lesson plan...