Children tend to read for the action in the story and sometimes do not pay attention to the finer details of character provided by the author. Ask students to generate a list of adjectives to describe how a character looks, acts, feels, talks and moves. Match the description with textual evidence. Have students choose a character in a book and practice impersonating the character by adopting the same style of speech, body language, emotions and reactions. Pair students up and have one student interview the character about her feelings in certain situations, other characters and reasons for certain decisions and actions. The interviewee must respond as the character as portrayed by the author, not as himself. Ask the interviewer to take notes and write an article on the interview, or have each pair practice and then perform a "live" interview in front of the class. Another variation is to do a group interview of several characters from one book and compare their responses to better understand the complex variables that influence human emotional response to different situations.
Creating a character t-shirt gives a student a wearable memento that helps her better understand the inner workings of a favorite character and recognize the common human experiences represented in the character's emotional development and maturity process. Each student analyzes the character traits of her chosen character and uses graphic or paint programs on the computer, as well as word processing or publishing software, to design the front, back and sleeve patterns for the shirt. The front design includes title and author as well as character name, picture and description (physical and personality). One sleeve can highlight character strengths and the other weaknesses. The back design describes conflicts that the character faces, his responses, key climactic choices and sample quotes that highlight speech style and memorable words. Print each design on iron-on paper and transfer them to the t-shirt.
During the course of a school year, students generally read several books, giving the teacher a chance to make character analysis an ongoing project. Have students keep a character scrapbook for the characters in each story you read as a class. A character entry should include the book's title, author and character name; a sketch of the character's physical characteristics (hair style and color, eye and skin color, shape of nose, ears, mouth, any distinguishing markings and predominant clothing style) as described in the author's text; and eight to 10 descriptors of the character's background, personality, inner character, speech style, body language, motivation, relationships, feelings and challenges, with textual evidence to support each. Keep each entry in a notebook to provide a record of all the books and characters read during the year.
By spring, a class should have a well-developed repertoire of shared reading experiences with books they have all read together. A light game provides a break from the business of deep character analysis and a quick, fun and easy review of the characters explored during literature studies. Let students take turns impersonating different characters from the stories the class has read, including as many distinctive speech or behavioral clues as necessary. The class must guess which character it is and name the book and author. The person who guesses correctly gets to take the next turn.