K20 LEARN
Motivations In "The Gift Of The Magi": Motivation In Characters
O. Henry's short story, "The Give of the Magi," launches a study of what motivates people to act as they do. Class members identify what they believe are the motivations of the characters in O. Henry's tale and then craft a one-page...
Polk Bros Foundation
I Can Identify/Infer Motive
Why do people and characters act as they do? Require your class figure out the motivation of two people or characters they read about in a given text. In the short charts, pupils note down who, what they do, and why they do it. After...
Polk Bros Foundation
I Can Infer Motive and Effects for an Action
Help your pupils determine just what makes a character or person tick by zooming in on one character or person. This graphic organizer is dedicated to analyzing one person and asks pupils to infer a personality trait, note down an action...
Curated OER
A Boxful of Character
I can't wait to try this activity with my class. It's versatile and could be modified to fit any character analysis lesson. To analyze characters thoroughly, learners create life boxes. Each box will pertain to a character from any...
E Reading Worksheets
Character Traits and Motivations
Middle schoolers use this guided reading worksheet to identify the traits and motivations of characters in an assigned text.
Polk Bros Foundation
I Can Infer Motives
Why did they do it? Get to the bottom of complex characters and people by analyzing their motivation. Learners select an action and take a close look at that action in order to infer motive. They then explain why they determined that...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 4: Creating Main Characters
Creating a good main character is a must when writing a creative narrative or novel. Elementary aged writers create main characters for the novel they are writing. They first use themselves as a models, then create a character as a...
Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Identity Lesson 5: Motivation - Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs provides the lens class members use to analyze and evaluate the motivations of the characters in Sylvia Plath's "Initiation" and scenes from Mean Girls. Readers then select a character from A...
Curated OER
Taming of the Shrew: Act 2 Questions
Activate higher-level thinking and reading comprehension skills with these questions about act 2 of Taming of the Shrew. Literary analysts respond briefly in writing to 5 questions about plot, characters, motivation, and personal...
Curated OER
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck: Chapter 2 Reading Check
"What is George upset about? Check all that apply." Here's a worksheet that asks readers to delve more deeply into character attitudes and motivations. In addition, Part II asks individuals to record passages from that text that capture...
Curated OER
Summer of the Monkeys
While reading the book Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls, the class ties together the core reading objectives, which are making predictions, comprehending new information, reading for author's purpose, independence in reading,...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Shakespeare's Macbeth: Fear and the Motives of Evil
High schoolers use an online search engine (or a printed concordance) to locate passages that highlight Macbeth's response to fear and his descent into evil. They analyze the motives of Macbeth's increasingly desperate and evil actions.
Curated OER
Descriptive Writing Using the Book Rumpelstiltskin
Use the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin to teach your third grade class about descriptive writing. Following a teacher read-aloud of the story, the class brainstorms a list of adjectives describing the main character. Students use this list...
Curated OER
Michelle Kwan: Heart of a Champion
Who is a champion to your class? Elementary and middle schoolers think of a role-model from their lives. Then, in their journals, they write evidence of that person's perseverance. They identify the character trait of perseverance with...
Curated OER
Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Eighth graders read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and participate in whole class discussions. They evaluate, analyze, and synthesize information in the text in order to explain character motivation and action. Students produce an essay...
Curated OER
Getting to Know Characters
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...
Curated OER
The Landlady Pre-Reading: The Characters
Prepare your class to read "The Landlady" by Roald Dahl with these pre-reading activities about the two main characters in the story. This resource provides a brief overview of the story as well as excerpts from the text that describe...
Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Identity Lesson 6: Kohlberg's Levels of Moral Reasoning
How does our moral reasoning shape our identity? After a study of Kohlberg's Levels of Moral Reasoning, readers use Kohlberg's theories to analyze the speech, thoughts, and decisions of a character in A Separate Peace. They then...
EngageNY
Close Reading of The Boy Who Loved Words: How Do People Build Their Word Power?
Third graders practice the skills of identifying the main message in a story, describing the main character, and sorting the key details of a story into specific categories. The story they read is, The Boy Who Loved Words. Using a...
Curated OER
Characters in Live Performance
Your intermediate or advanced thespians choose dramatic scenes to perform in duos, small groups, or solo to demonstrate vocal and physical characterization. Use class time to prepare and rehearse. Detailed rubrics work for peer assessment.
Avi Writer
Sophia’s War: A Tale of the Revolution Teaching Guide
Sophia's War, Avi's novel that tracks the adventures of Sophia Calderwood, a fictional character, as well as the true stories of British Major John Andre and General Benedict Arnold during the American Revolution, is the anchor...
Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Identity Lesson 7: Logical Fallacies
What are the effects of competition in an academic environment? The competition between the main characters in A Separate Peace motivates a series of activities that asks readers to take a stance on competition, and then to develop a...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Hamlet Meets Chushingura: Traditions of the Revenge Tragedy
Students read texts, view film and video and conduct research in an analysis and comparison of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and the Kabuki piece "Chushingura". They focus their analysis on the theme of revenge.
Curated OER
AWARD CERTIFICATE FOR A CHARACTER
Connect to real-world experiences by having your primary learners create an award certificate based upon literal and inferential information from a story. They present the award to a character from a story and explain the criteria used....