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Who's Who? A Character Deep Dive

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Lesson Plan

Who's Who? A Character Deep Dive

Students will be able to infer character traits and motivations by using specific details and evidence from the text.

Understanding characters helps students comprehend stories more deeply, connect with the narrative, and develop critical thinking skills by analyzing human behavior and motivations within fictional contexts.

Audience

3rd Grade Students

Time

15 minutes

Approach

Through modeling, guided practice, and independent application with text evidence.

Materials

Whiteboard or projector, Character Clues Slide Deck, Character Detective Worksheet, and Short Story Reading

Prep

Review Materials

5 minutes

Step 1

Connect to Prior Knowledge: What are Characters?

2 minutes

  • Teacher asks: "Who can tell me what a 'character' is in a story?" (Guide students to understand characters are the people or animals in a story).
  • Teacher asks: "How do we learn about characters? What do authors tell us or show us?" (Guide students to think about what characters say, do, think, and how others react to them).

Step 2

Model the Skill: Character Detective Work

5 minutes

  • Teacher introduces: "Today, we're going to be 'Character Detectives'! Our job is to figure out what kind of person a character is, even if the author doesn't tell us directly. We'll look for clues in the story to infer their traits."
  • Teacher presents: Use the Character Clues Slide Deck to explain character traits (words that describe personality) and motivations (why characters do what they do). Show an example from the Short Story Reading, modeling how to find text evidence to support an inference about a character's trait or motivation.
    • Example: (Teacher reads a short passage about a character helping a friend). "The character helped their friend carry heavy books. This shows they are helpful. The clue is that they helped carry heavy books."
  • Teacher introduces: Distribute the Character Detective Worksheet and explain that students will use it to record their clues.

Step 3

Guided Practice: Finding Clues Together

5 minutes

  • Teacher reads: Read the next section of the Short Story Reading aloud to the class, or have students read it independently or in pairs.
  • Teacher facilitates: "Now, let's work together to find clues about another character or a new trait for our first character." Guide students to identify character actions or words and discuss what these clues tell us about the character's traits and motivations.
  • Students record: Have students fill in a section of their Character Detective Worksheet with the class's shared inferences and text evidence.

Step 4

Independent Application: Solo Detective Mission

3 minutes

  • Teacher assigns: "Alright, Character Detectives, it's time for your solo mission! Finish reading the Short Story Reading and complete the rest of your Character Detective Worksheet on your own. Remember to look for clues and write down the text evidence that helps you infer character traits and motivations."
  • Teacher circulates: Monitor students as they work, providing support and prompting as needed.
  • Teacher wraps up: Collect worksheets for review. Briefly ask students to share one interesting character trait or motivation they discovered.
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