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...

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.

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 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 the...

Students analyze main characters.  In this character lesson, students read stories and analyze the characteristics of the main character.  They write a short description of each charater analyzed. Students use NotFolio to present...

It's a tale of life, retold by a genius, full of sound and fury. Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood takes center stage in a resource that spotlights how the director adapted the characters and themes in Shakespeare's Macbeth to Japanese...

Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" engages adolescents with its theme about the dangers of complete societal equality. Learners complete a graphic organizer to track literary elements in the story, as well as an inference...

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,...