The complete second unit of Reading Workshop for the Secondary Classroom. Lessons, handouts, and activities provide you with everything you need to teach the unit. All lessons apply to any book your students may choose to read. All lessons are CCSS-aligned.

Unit 2: Building Character

“Getting into” a book refers to the way a reader connects on an intimate and personal level with its characters. Whether we root for a protagonist or despise a villain, characters draw us in as readers and lay the foundation for the heart of a book. In this unit, students begin to learn strategies that help them understand a character’s unique place and role in a story, evaluate characters’ points of view in relation to the larger plot, and explore the specifics of a character in order to better comprehend and predict that character’s behaviors. All of these skills lend to a deeper, richer experience with the text and, of course, its cast of characters.

Lesson Sequence

1. Hello, My Role Is ­­­­­­­­­­­­______________—Identifying Characters Within a Story
2. Movies of the Mind—Visualizing Characters
3. Digging into Details—What Description Reveals About a Character
4. Whose Perspective?—Exploring Point of View
5. In an Alternate World—Playing with Point of View
6. Gut Feeling—Learning to Make Inferences About Characters
7. The Next Move—Profiling, Predicting, and Character Analysis
8. Inside My Own Head—Exploring Motivation
9. Good to Meet You—Exploring Motivation in Classic Characters
10. Growth Mindset—The Value of a Character’s Mistakes and Irregularities
11. Charting Growth—Introduction to Character Development
12. What Do You Mean… Exactly?—Pinpointing Characterization by Understanding Connotations

©2019. Middle school, high school. Reproducible. PDF Download. 84 pages. Adobe® Reader® required to view.

About the Author

Leslie Spurrier holds a bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University and a master's degree in Reading and Language Arts from Millersville University. She taught middle school English and reading for over seven years and lived to tell the tale. Her favorite literary character of all time is Anne Shirley, which made giving birth to a red-headed little girl all the more glorious. Leslie currently resides in Lititz, PA, with her husband and two children. When she's not voraciously devouring books of all sorts, she creates educational materials for her online business, Story Trekker, and desperately tries to keep her cat Shadow from scratching up her favorite chair.