Students explore a character's motivation in a text.  For this characterization lesson, students view a video about Duke Ellington. Students discuss motivations for Duke Ellington and write sentences explaining Ellington's changes.

Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" is a bit of a puzzle. Critics have long debated Montresor's motives for killing Fortunato. Young scholars examine examples of the three types of irony (verbal, dramatic, and...

Students explore the concept of character development. In this character development lesson, students watch a video segment regarding a family's struggle with cancer. Students examine the personality, situation, motivation, and...

Character analysis becomes easy with a 24-page packet packed with mini-lessons, graphic organizers, and activities. A must-have for your curriculum library.

Guide your readers to explore character traits. As a class, discuss and record the traits of a commonly-known fairy tale character. Then do the same with the main character in the class novel. Finally, have learners use magazines...

Animals oftentimes elicit various characteristics which make them symbolic or representative of human feeling, action, or emotion. The class creates horse characters out of clay to show character action and symbolism. This is a great...

O. Henry's short story, "The Give of the Magi," launches a study of what motivates people to act as they do. Class members identify what they believe are the motivations of the characters in O. Henry's tale and then craft a one-page...

Readers practice character analysis by reviewing Gary Soto's short story "La Bamba" with the whole class (anything you've read together will work). They design t-shirts that feature traits and story elements to reveal the nature of a...

Explore character traits using this resource. After reading the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears, learners fill in a graph identifying character traits. Then, they write and put on a skit. This resource provides a motivating way to...

Everyone learns and experiences life differently. A set of lessons about character intensities encourages middle and high schoolers to analyze themselves, their peers, and characters from a book based on the five listed intensities:...

As a class, young writers learn how to develop a strong supporting character. They think and discuss a good friend they know, they use that friend as a basis for a potential supporting character. They create a supporting character as a...

Making inferences and drawing conclusions is a key component to successful active reading. Encourage your class to use context clues and prior knowledge to infer different elements of a story, including the setting, plot, and character...

I can't wait to try this activity with my class. It's versatile and could be modified to fit any character analysis activity. To analyze characters thoroughly, learners create life boxes. Each box will pertain to a character from any...

Students explore Christopher Columbus's motives. For this character education lesson, students research Internet and print sources regarding the life and actions of Christopher Columbus in order to write essays that his actions as the...

Connect to real-world experiences by having your primary learners create an award certificate based upon literal and inferential information from a story. They present the award to a character from a story and explain the criteria used....

Capulets and Montagues. Sharks and Jets. Nortenos and Surenos. Gradwitzes and Znaeyms? Hector Hugh Munro's short story "The Interlopers" invites high schoolers to consider the causes of conflicts and reflect on what it takes to resolve...

Sixth graders explore language arts by completing a reading comprehension worksheet. In this character study lesson plan, 6th graders read a crime story and investigate which character they belive committed the crime. Students complete a...

Creating a good main character is a must when writing a creative narrative or novel. Elementary aged writers create main characters for the novel they are writing. They first use themselves as a models, then create a character as a...

High school freshmen craft their own definition of honesty. They provide an example from their lives and reflect on the outcomes of their honest behavior. They also identify a time when they may have been dishonest in a relationship and...

Tenth graders complete a variety of activities related to the first two chapters of the book The Outsiders. They define metaphor, simile, idiom, and hyperbole, and take a vocabulary pre-quiz. In small groups, they write a character...

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs provides the lens class members use to analyze and evaluate the motivations of the characters in Sylvia Plath's "Initiation" and scenes from Mean Girls. Readers then select a character from A...

Class members may "think themselves accurs'd" when they first hear of an assignment that asks them to create a motivational speech. After studying the Saint Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's Henry V; however, they will count...

Who is a champion to your class? Elementary and middle schoolers think of a role-model from their lives. Then, in their journals, they write evidence of that person's perseverance. They identify the character trait of perseverance with...

Students demonstrate their self discipline and motivation by brainstorming their own personal self discipline goals. In this self discipline lesson, students analyze examples of self discipline and self control by completing a worksheet...