Showing posts with label character development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label character development. Show all posts

Saturday, March 27, 2021

Text Set: Keeping Track of Characters

 Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. 

Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!


Knowing and keeping track of characters is important for readers at all levels.  There are many ways to think about character, but one challenge readers sometimes have is keeping track of characters across a book. Keeping track of characters requires readers to know characters and to slow down and think about them. This week's text set will focus on books to support conversations on ways to keep track of characters across a text. 

When we talk about keeping track of characters across a text, I love to begin with books that have two characters who have a strong relationship. Often in books with 2 main characters, the two characters have similarities and differences and those differences often become important to the story. Using books such as Ginger and Chrysanthemum and Ling and Ting start great conversations about stopping to think about each character individually as we read. Sticky notes on the cover with things we learn about each character as we read is one way to make this thinking visible.


Making sure to include nonfiction in conversations around characters is important. This fabulous nonfiction picture book--Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams-- would invite conversations that build on the work in fiction. Keeping track of people in a story requires that you pay attention to the details about each character.  Connecting the strategies readers use for fiction to nonfiction is important. 


I like Salma the Syrian Chef as part of this study on keeping track of characters because Salma is clearly the main character but she has several people who support her.  These characters are typically flat characters who help the main character solve her problem in different ways. As readers move into more complex texts, flat characters and those in supporting roles become more and more important. These characters are often hard to keep track of because readers don't get to know them well.  Charting these new characters as they come up is a good way to keep track of characters when there are several. 


One of my favorite graphic novels, The Cardboard Kingdom, is one that is filled with interesting characters. Not only are there many characters to keep track of but they also have fictional characters they portray in their play throughout the book. So, to understand each character, you need to know both of the characters identities.  This is a more complex book and probably best for grades 3-6. 


Operation Frog Effect is perfect for middle grade readers to think about characters and keeping track of different characters by knowing them well. This story is told from several perspectives--students in a class- and each is a different writing style, a different font, etc. Hearing from characters in their own voices makes this perfect for this conversation and learning. 



This week's books were linked at Cover to Cover Children's Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous children's bookstore to support, this is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio!

 

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Crabby Characters



by Jory John, illustrated by Lane Smith

There's one in every crowd, isn't there? Look at that cover. Everything's just fine with the entire raft (rookery, colony, and huddle, waddle) of penguins. Except that one.

Thank goodness for the walrus, who talks some sense into our crabby, dissatisfied penguin friend. Except in the end...



by Jeremy Tankard

Here's another whiney, dissatisfied character (with a bunch of REALLY patient friends). Bird hasn't packed a snack for the hike, but he also doesn't want anything the other animals have to offer. In the end, he does taste their snacks, but when his favorite shows up (a worm)...sigh...




by Vera Brosgol

Grandmother has had it with all of the bothersome, interfering grandchildren. One day she packs up her knitting and walks off yelling, "Leave me alone!" This is her refrain over and over again as different characters in different settings hamper her ability to sit in a quiet spot and knit. She finally finds peace and quiet in a black hole. Then, in the end...ahhh, finally a character who recovers from a bad case of the crabbies. 


Wednesday, February 10, 2016

World Read Aloud Day -- 7 Strengths Countdown



I blogged about Belonging Week, Curiosity Week, and Friendship Week, and then I dropped the ball! Now I'm going to attempt to combine Kindness Week, Confidence Week and Courage Week all into one post!


Last week (on 2/2, the day the book was released), I started Pax, by Sara Pennypacker, as our next read aloud. It's another book with hard issues that we can feel in our hearts; another book that will make us gasp with fear and cry with relief; another book that will put us in the shoes of a character who is dealing with hard problems; another book with a character on a physical journey and a journey of the heart.

This remarkable story is told in alternating chapters from the points of view of Peter (the boy) and Pax (the fox). Both Peter and Pax encounter other characters who show them unexpected kindness and who help them build their confidence and grow into a place of courage. In fact, the parallels between the boy's and the fox's stories are something I hope my students will notice on their own. Who am I kidding? They are already making amazing comparisons between this book and Dan Geminhart's The Honest Truth and Some Kind of Courage.

If you haven't read this amazing book, move it to the top of your TBR stack!


Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Mister Horizontal & Miss Vertical


Mister Horizontal & Miss Vertical
by Noémie Révah
illustrations by Olimpia Zagnoli
translated from the French by Claudia Bedrick
Enchanted Lion Books, 2014
review copy provided by the publisher

Mister Horizontal and Miss Vertical couldn't be more different.

Can you guess who likes gliding, boating and "walking in the desert, with sand as far as the eye can see?" And who likes bungee jumping, rockets, and "New York, the city of sky scrapers?"

More than just a concept book about horizontal and vertical, this is a book about opposites, and a fabulous mentor text for writers of all age and experience who need to practice describing their characters in a variety of ways.