Step into the shoes (or sandals, perhaps?) of Odysseus, a member of his crew, or another character featured in Homer's enduring classic, The Odyssey. and send a letter back telling the world your side of this great adventure story.

Class members conclude their reading of The House on Mango Street with an assignment that asks them to compose letters to characters using their own voices or that of another character in Cisneros' story.

Putting together an interesting story can be hard, but this set of worksheets will guide your writers into the depths of their own creativity as they characterize both their main character and villain. Using humor to keep learners...

Build trust—literally—with a lesson that sparks reflection, grand conversation, and creativity. Scholars construct a trust tower out of blocks showcasing a picture that represents a good deed they have done to gain trust from their...

It's time to party like it's 1899! Incorporate a research-based celebration of the Victorian Era into your unit on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. After learners read the novella or view a production of the play, they craft a...

Cool! Do you ned a way to increase vocabulary development and study a story's characters? What a great idea. Use this semantic analysis chart to study new vocabulary and the characters that appear in The Outsiders. You could also use...

Through character trait graphic organizers, a vocabulary sorting activity, class discussion, and a civil rights movement slide show, your young historians will be introduced to the amazing story of Ruby Bridges and her experiences as the...

Young poets demonstrate their understanding of a character from Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street by crafting a biopoem that captures the essence of this person.

Zoom into the distance with a reading game based on Disney's Cars. Kids use the rules associated with Uno® to match either the character or the word on each card during their turn, or they can skip players, reverse the...

Have your class create acrostic poems for characters in The Hobbit. First, define acronyms and work together to complete sample acronyms for their own first names. Learners then research specific characters in the novel and create...

Students explore scenes from Katherine Paterson's book, Bridge to Terabithia. For this visualization lesson, students listen to the story read aloud. The students then choose words and phrases that paint a picture in their heads....

This set of worksheets constitutes enough work and materials to be considered a lesson. They guide readers through a process of exploring characters and their motivations, and writing a paragraph about them. Here are seven handouts that...

The biopoem is a great way for instructors to get to know class members, classmates to get to know each other, and readers to flesh out their understanding of a character. Why not create a biopoem for a character from Oedipus the...

Get an in-depth look into a narrative text with a three-page worksheet that examines a story's character—actions, sayings, thoughts, and appearance—setting, and challenges scholars to write a brief summary about what they've read. 

Love, deception, witty bante—that's much ado about a lot!  As learners navigate the resource, they view an interactive character map and read character biographies from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Pupils also...

Madness, violence, despair—the titular character of Shakespeare's Macbeth is spiraling out of control. Pupils first explore the topic with a collaborative jigsaw discussion. At the end of the instructional activity, they write about how...

To prepare for crafting a descriptive poem about a character in F. Scot Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, groups describe the texture of objects hidden in small bags. Individuals then select a character from the novel and an object...

Do not let Julius Caesar be Greek to your pupils. Rather, make the play a dish fit for hungry minds. Encourage your class members to lend their ears to a series of rich discussion questions so that they can become masters of the play, as...

Use a character or person's motivation as the basis for a prediction of that character or person's next action. Pupils select an individual from their reading, copy a quote, write down an inference about that character's motives, and...

Examine homelessness through a series of writing and discussion activities and a short film. Learners first come up with their own stories based on images of characters in the film. They then watch the film and respond to a series of...

Follow the format of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles with a journal-writing activity. Readers choose a character and examine the character's life and circumstances through brainstorming, research, and discussion before...

Here's a lesson you can really build on! Middle schoolers describe the occupants of an imaginary house during a character-building lesson. They create a cast of characters who share living space and provide details about their attitudes,...

Learners annotate text from The Great Gatsby before working through a character development map. They then use text evidence in a final essay to describe the connection between central ideas and character development.

Reflecting on character strengths can bring a little sunshine as the gray days of winter approach. Tweens and teens view a PowerPoint presentation, watch a short video about character strengths, and take a survey that helps them identify...