Sandra K. Friday
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1.) Copy the passage on lined paper, leaving a wide margin around the edges where you can write your ideas and associations. Copying passages gives students a tactile association with the words, phrases, and sentences, sometimes adding to their relationship to the character.
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2.) Underline any unfamiliar words and look up their definitions.
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3.) Circle words or phrases that seem meaningful to our study of character (meaningful to our class discussions so far, and about the issues that have surfaced in the text, or that are important to your own ideas, or that raise questions).
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4.) Brainstorm ideas and associations for the circled words or phrases by drawing lines from the circled words and phrases out to the margins where you can write these ideas and associations, or questions.
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5.) Write down connections to characteristics that we have identified so far in our study.
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6.) Write down three to four sentences that discuss the meaning of this passage for exploring the character. (That is, what a character says, thinks, or does that is motivated from an inside emotion, attitude, or conviction.)
It is my plan to pick passages from the novel that reveal Ellen's character throughout the unit, but I will ask my students to begin picking their own passages, as well, for marking and discussing because learning to identify passages that reveal character is as much a skill as marking and discussing them. And through encouraging students to pick their own passages, mark and discuss them, and share their findings, we will no doubt come up with a more fully developed awareness of character. The skill of learning to choose passages that focus on character development will be of great use in the Language Arts CAPT, when my students are exploring character change and what motivates it. I address the connection to the Language Arts CAPT later in my unit.
