The Teacher’s Blackboard  Ó2006

By

Karen Newcomb

A column for teachers with tools to help their students understand the writing process.

Have your students selected a book, or books, that have interesting characters in the story?  You can use the same book(s) to continue learning character traits.  How does the character come alive?  What are some of the traits we are talking about?

In lesson four I’ll continue developing that three-dimensional character.  Lesson two, picking a name.  Lesson three showed the beginning of making a character come to life by describing the physical appearance.

LESSON FOUR:  PART TWO:  Developing character traits

1. Is the character married?  Have a girl friend?  Have a boyfriend?
2. Does the character have parents?
3. Does the character have children?
4. Does the character have brothers and/or sisters?
5. What is the birth order of your character?
6. How does your character get along with others at home?
7. How does your character get along with others at the office?
8. How does your character get along with others at school?
9. Ask how your character gets along with others in each of the above settings.
10. Does the home reflect the character?
11. Is the character happy at home?  At school?  At the office?
12. If not, why?
13. Does your character enjoy their home life?
14. Is there anything the character would change about their home life?  Their office life?  Their school life?

The above questions put your character in several different settings.  Let them react to each setting.  They should react differently in each.  Kids and adults will react differently in their home life from their office or school lives.  As a teacher you only see one side of your students.  A perfectly behaved student may be a terror on wheels outside the classroom, while only mildly misbehaved at home.  As a former school volunteer mom I saw it all.  From the perfect student in the classroom, who beat up another student when they thought no one was looking, to total denial of any misbehaving behavior from the parents.  As a workingwoman I watched the backstabbing and gossip among employees.  Yet these same employees were quite different outside their work environment. 

Let me use Tom Sawyer again to more define this section of character traits.

Tom’s parents must be dead because he lives with his Aunt Polly.  Aunt Polly says, “Hang the boy, can’t I ever learn anything?  Ain’t he played me tricks enough, but, he’s my own dead sister’s boy, poor thing, and I ain’t got the heart to lash him somehow.  Every time I let him off my conscience does hurt me so; and every time I hit him my old heart ‘most breaks.”    This statement, and there is more, tells a lot about Tom from his aunt’s viewpoint.

Tom is an only child.  And as we learn through Aunt Polly, he’s a hand full.

Tom’s home life is probably typical of that period in history.  Goes to school, plays hookey, misbehaves and is punished at times.

An incident on the first page occurs when his Aunt Polly catches Tom with jam on his face.  He’s been told to leave the jam alone.  When Aunt Polly goes to switch Tom…he escapes.  The punishment?  He will lose his Saturday, when all the boys are having a holiday. 

Because Tom is a well-developed character, his reaction to this punishment comes into play.

From his reaction to the punishment we learn about Tom’s ability to get his friends, and enemies to whitewash that fence.

Assignment

Take these questions and ask your students to best describe the main character in the book they’ve chosen.  How does that character react in these three settings? 

Next month we finish creating the three-dimensional character chart.