The Art of Charity in Characterization

Introduce protagonists, antagonists, antiheros, and foils to your unit on Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying. After reading the first 13 chapters from the book, learners discuss Grant's behavior and reactions to different events,...

Explore with your class how Elizabeth Buhot develops the theme of alienation in the way she depicts the isolation of her characters in “A Start.” The richly detailed plan includes a reading check, discussion questions, vocabulary...

"They all carried ghosts." Mitchell Sanders, Lieutenant Cross, Ted Lavender, Azar, Dave Jensen, Lee Strunk, Bob Kiley, Curt Lemon. Protagonists and antagonists? Major or minor characters? And what about Tim O'Brien? Author or character?...

Reflection is a wonderful way to understand yourself as a learner or as an artist. Kids write a one-paragraph analysis of their own self-portrait. They focus on style, character traits, and self characterization.

Is Tom Joad the protagonist of The Grapes of Wrath? If Tom Joad is the protagonist then who or what is the antagonist? Who are the foils? What does Tom learn from them? What does the reader learn about Tom by contrasting him with the...

Compare and contrast the characters in John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Using a Venn diagram, kids write in different traits to describe each person, and note their shared characteristics in the middle section.

Continue your study of In the Time of the Butterflies with this second lesson plan in a series of ten. Pupils participate in an exploration of the setting Julia Alvarez creates, a discussion about truth and fiction and their reading from...

How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty uses...

Seven major abstract art movements are analyzed by learners in groups. Each group analyzes various works by determining which work belongs to which movement. They then read Flatland, engage in an art and literary analysis discussion,...

The danger of mob mentality is on display in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Get your class thinking with some challenging quickwrite questions, then assign characters from the play to be read aloud altogether. Links to worksheets for...