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 Printable Version for your convenience!
Title - Writing a Character Description
By - Darcy Nickel
Primary Subject - Language Arts
Secondary Subjects -
Grade Level - 3rd - 5th
Topic: -- Writing Character Descriptions
Instructional Objectives:
-- Students will identify the information needed to create a good character description.
-- Students will write a character description.
ELD Strategies: realia, illustrations, brainstorming, modeling
Materials: shopping bag, carved coconut head, drawing paper, crayons, grandma mouse doll, paper, pencil, laminated pictures of different people with unique qualities (**Note: You can use different "realia" for motivation & guided practice)
Motivation: Show students a closed shopping bag that has a blank face with a question mark draw on the outside. Tell students that in the bag is the character for a new story. The character's name is Captain Nuttly. He is a very strange looking man. Ask students to draw a picture of the character based on that description. Allow them five minutes. When time is up, pull the coconut head out of the bag. Ask students if any of their drawings look like the character. What information would they need to draw an accurate picture?
Instruction:
-- Explain to students that a good character description paints a picture with words. Review the five senses used in descriptive writing.
-- Using a web, pre-write a description for Captain Nuttly. Teacher models pre-writing and brainstorming with input from the class.
-- Using the information from the pre-writing activity, model writing a description of the character in a paragraph.
Guided Practice:
-- Display the grandma mouse doll in front of the students.
-- Ask students to pre-write a description for the mouse using a web.
-- Once pre-writing is complete, ask students to write their description in proper paragraph format.
Independent Practice:
-- Give each student a laminated photo of a person. The pictures should be unique. They should inspire the use of many different adjectives.
-- For homework, students will write a description of the person in the photograph.
Additional Activities:
-- Post the laminated pictures on the wall and read the character descriptions that students wrote. Ask students to match the description with the correct picture.
-- Read good character descriptions from literature.
-- Ask students to write a description of a friend or classmate.
Assessment:
-- Check for understanding during instruction.
-- Observe students during guided practice to determine if they are following the process for writing a character description.
-- Evaluate each student's character description looking for the elements discussed in the lesson.
E-Mail Darcy Nickel!
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