LESSON DAY 3
TITLE:
Creating Character – Paint a Character from Eight Perspectives
SUBJECT:
American Literature and Composition
GRADE:
10th
QCC(s):
18, 26, 27, 28, 41
GENERAL
OBJECTIVES: (IRA/NCTE standards for the English Language Arts)
Students will:
•
Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate,
and appreciate text. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions
with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other
texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual
features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context,
graphics). (No. 3)
•
Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different
process elements appropriately to communicate effectively with a variety of
audiences and for different purposes. (No. 5)
•
Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical
members of a variety of literary communities. (No. 11)
SPECIFIC
OBJECTIVES: (Georgia’s Quality Core Curriculum)
Students will:
•
Participate in the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing,
proofreading, and publishing. (Topic: Core Skills – L.A.
9-12 No. 18)
•
Adapt writing style to various audiences. (Topic: Writing/Usage/Grammar – L.A. 9-12 No. 26)
•
Develop imaginative expression in writing (fresh ideas, diction, and voice).
(Topic: Writing/Usage/Grammar – L.A. 9-12 No.
27)
•
Use techniques appropriate to different stages of the writing process to
achieve fluency, control, and proficiency. (Topic: Writing/Usage/Grammar
Grammar – L.A. 9-12 No. 28)
•
Write in narrative, descriptive, persuasive, and expository modes with emphasis
on exposition. (Topic: Writing/Usage/Grammar – L.A.
9-12 No. 41)
PROCEDURES/TEARCHER
NOTES:
Daily Writing
Prompt: [10
minutes]
As
students enter the class each day they will be given a new expository prompt
either in a handout, written on the board or projected by an overhead. Students
will respond to the text by writing a paragraph.
Prompt:
Quotes:
“All
that is needed for the triumph of evil is that good people be silent.”
Lord
Acton
“Prejudice
is the child of ignorance.”
William
Hazlitt
Question
the students will answer: Think about
what you have just read. Write an expository paragraph to turn in explaining
your response to the text.
Quick
Write: Students will create a fast response paragraph as quickly as possible.
When the students have finished their fast response, they should place it in
their class folder, put their pen/pencil down and remain quiet.
Overview of
main lesson:
In
introducing the writing activity Paint a
Character from Eight Perspectives, the teacher will explain to the class
the day’s writing activity.
Step
1: [5 minutes]
Introduction
Example
of starter comments that may be used in the introduction for the day’s lesson:
a) Characters are the persons presented in works of narrative or drama who
convey their personal qualities through dialogue and action by which the reader
or audience understands their thoughts, feelings, intentions and motives.
b) Stock characters are types of characters, which have become
conventional in particular genres through repeated use.
c)
Today you will be developing a character
description for a stock character. Take a look at the list on this overhead.
Your group will pick a character to develop.
Step
2: [5 minutes]
Directions
To help students understand the activity for building characters
and later character scenes, the teacher will:
a)
Divide the class into pairs. With those students
remaining, make one more group of three.
b)
Distribute copies of Campbell's eight
devices for characterization so that each member in the group has a set.
c)
Assign three of Campbell's techniques to each group member.
Step
3: [5 minutes]
Examples
Two
examples of character sketches will be projected for the students to view prior
to the activity as a model.
Step
4: [15 minutes]
The
student pairs will build their characters using their assigned Campbell Methods.
Step
5: [20 minutes]
Once
time is called the pairs then following the direction sheet and the teacher’s
prompt, will create a scene that has the two characters interacting.
CLOSING:
[25 minutes]
Each
pair will present their scene for the class either through one representative
reading or by taking turns. The groups will be using their experiences in
creating a character when they examine the use of character in The Crucible.
MATERIALS:
a)
The students will be given a copy of Walter Campbell's Methods for Painting Characters. (They will keep it as a resource in the
CLASSWORK section of their notebooks).
b)
The students will also be given written directions (to
reinforce the oral directions) on how to complete the writing exercise.
c)
Each group will be given a notepad to write their
collaborative characterizations on.
d)
A list of sock characters will be projected via an overhead
from which each group will pick their characters.
e)
Overhead projector
ADDITIONAL
TEACHER NOTES:
While
students are painting their characters, the teacher will walk around the room
monitoring the students’ activities and assisting students when appropriate or
needed.
SUPPLEMENTARY
MATERIALS: Students will need to have paper, pen/pencil.
EVALUATION:
The
teacher will know that the students understand the concept of character, its
importance as an element of fiction, and how to create a character by reviewing
the group’s depiction of their characters.
ACCOMMODATIONS: See accommodation sheet
REFERENCES:
Adapted
from: Chapter 7, Strategy 1: Paint a Character from Eight Perspectives
Noden,
Harry R. Image Grammar; Using Grammatical Structures to Teach
Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann,
1999.
HANDOUT
Creating Character - Paint a Character
from Eight Perspectives
DIRECTIONS:
You will be working as
pairs to create a group character sketch. Your first task is for both of you to
each pick a stock character from the list projected on the overhead – you
and your partner will write about this character.
Once you and your partner
have each chosen your character, you will each be assigned three of Walter
Campbell's devices (see handout). You will use these devices to describe the
characters in your writing.
Now begin writing using
your three devices (ex. By action of the character & By the
character’s own reactions to persons, things, and surrounding circumstances, By
explaining the traits and motives of the character).
Write three to five
sentences that characterize your character’s stereotype. You will have eight
minutes to work. After that time, you should pass the passage to your
partner, who will continue the characterization of that character using his or
her three devices, while you do the same.
Once you have finished with
a full rotation on your group’s characters continue the writing rotation until
time is called.
Now review what you have
written on your characters. You and your partner will now create a scene in
which your two characters interact. In this scene you will combine your
assigned Campbell's Methods for Painting Characters with elements of action,
setting and most importantly dialogue.
HANDOUT
Walter
Campbell's
Methods
for Painting Characters
1. By action of the character:
Pete
slunk out of the battle.
2. By speech of the character:
"Hiya, pardner!"
3. By effect of the character upon other characters:
Her loveliness was breath-taking.
4. By the character’s own reactions to persons, things, and
surrounding circumstances:
John adored her, especially in blue.
5. By reporting what other characters say about the character:
Said Tom, "Of course Sam is a heel!"
6. By explaining the traits and motives of the character:
He loved good food.
7. By describing the character (in terms of the five senses):
He had blue eyes, spoke with a Southern accent, smelled of the
smokehouse, and his muscles were hard as nails.
8. By analyzing the psychological processes of the character:
He was unable to overcome his shyness, which was the result of his
being the son of a famous and terribly egotistical father.
OVERHEAD
Narrator’s
Grandmother – From Caleb Carr's The Alienest
Back
in the hallway I ran headlong into my grandmother, her silver hair perfectly
coifed, her gray and black dress unimpeachably neat, and her gray eyes, which I
had inherited, glaring. "John!" she said in surprise, as if ten other
men were staying in her house. "Who in the world was on the
telephone?"
"Dr.
Kreizler, Grandmother," I said, bounding up the stairs.
"Dr.
Kreizler!" she called after me. "Well, dear! I’ve had about enough of
that Dr. Kreizler for one day!" As I closed the door of my bedroom and
began to dress, I could still hear her: "If you ask me, he’s awfully peculiar!
And I don’t put much stock in his being a doctor, either. That Holmes man was a
doctor, too!" She stayed in that vein while I washed, shaved, and scrubbed
my teeth with Sozodont.
Granny
lived alone until she was well in her 90’s, and every day took the local bus
down to Santa Cruz to attend the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors meetings,
which were public, and to criticize everything said. She slept on a carved
wooden Chinese headrest. She didn’t believe in baths or showers, and only took
sponge and foot baths. (She had a sink installed on the floor of her bathroom
for that special purpose.)
Once
she went to an auction, and on the spur of a moment, purchased 35 marble sinks.
Her crowning achievement, however, was Louella’s Diary. Louella was the town
lady who was, to put it politely, very popular with the men, and after she died
suddenly, her estate went up for auction. It had hideous imitation French
furniture, which Granny promptly bought, and hidden in one piece were Louella’s
collected diaries. The greatest delight of her life was to go up to businessmen
in the Bubble Bakery downtown at lunch, shake her finger at them, and cackle,
"I read about you in Louella’s Diary!"
OVERHEAD
School-Related
Conventional Characters:
• the class
cut-up, the ladies' man
• the
impatient secretary
• the deranged
school cook
• the
hard-of-hearing custodian
• the gullible
girl
• the computer
nerd
• the
popularity seeker
• a humorless
teacher
• the loner
• the school's
burn-out
• a
quick-tempered athlete
• the
constantly suspicious assistant principal
• the
complainer
• the ultimate
rule-follower
• the sports
fanatic
• the star
football lineman
• the
outstanding gymnast
Society-Related
Conventional Characters:
• the
rumor-spreading hairdresser
• the pious
reverend
• the
gum-chewing waitress
• the
talkative cab driver
• the
fanatical environmentalist
• the exotic
fortune teller
• the
always-excited disc jockey
• the smiling
news anchor
• the bigoted
red neck
• the
hand-shaking politician
• the
introverted accountant
• the
professional wrestler
• the rock
musician
• the
cold-blooded hit man
• the sleepy
all-night security guard
• the
union-supporting truck driver
• the eccentric
artist
• the TV
addict