Character Time (of the book kind)

We've started to dive into looking at characters during our readers workshop. It will, in fact, be our theme for the next month or so. Here is a breakdown of what we have learned so far:

Realistic/Unrealistic

The students took a look at their favorite characters from books, movies, television shows and video games and listed their characteristics. They had to make a list of realistic and unrealistic characteristics and form an opinion on whether or not it is realistically possible for someone like that to be real.

Character Flaw

If you ever want to be humbled a bit, ask a group of 28 students what your flaws are. I would first recommend that you ask for 'feats' first, in order to build up your self-esteem. Anyways - after the students shared what they felt were my feats and flaws, they had to look inward and list their feats and flaws. While sharing them with the class, Jessie made a remark that it "feels like we are sharing secrets" since we were listing things that we weren't particularly proud of.

The Antagonist

Every good story has a good villain - or something that pushes the story forward. Why do we love our heroes? We love them because they beat the bad guys. This lesson had the students taking a look at the bad guys and trying to figure out what makes them tick, why they would be against our hero, why did the author put this type of character here.

Crisis Situation

This one is all about the problems that our characters face. What is the main problem facing our character? What little problems come along that our character will have to overcome? How do the flaws that we identified in our character hinder their ability (or help) to solve the problem?