Reading

Showing A Character’s Trait

We tell students to "show, not tell" in their writing, but this advice isn't effective until they experience the difference. In this video, we'll put a famous character (of students' choosing) into a mundane situation and develop a fun scene to show off their main traits.

Paragraphs: Systems of Sentences

Part 1 of Mixed Up Paragraphs

Want students to understand how a paragraph fits together? Explode one and make them reassemble it using the clues in each sentence! I even wrote a little app to bust a paragraph up for you.

Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity

Your students will use Depth and Complexity to note how a character's main trait changes across a story.

Better Stories Part 4: Character Archetypes

Part 4 of Writing Better Stories

Are students' characters a bit flat? Archetypes give them a strong foundation on which to build their own characters as well as a tool to analyze existing stories.

Introduce Symbolism with Pixel Art

Create a pixelated icon that represents the essence of a character!

Identifying Author’s Voice

What if... Edgar Allen Poe wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

Characters’ Talents and Multiple Intelligences

How do characters from novels line up with Gardner's Multiple Intelligences?

Virtue or Vice?

Aristotle noted that positive traits and negative traits are often the same thing, but just in different amounts. The right amount is a virtue, but too much or too little and it's a vice.

Analyze Characters Using Philosophy

What is the Brick Pig's philosophy? How would he apply it to the characters in Harry Potter?

Motivation and Moral Development

Can someone do the right thing, but for the wrong reason?

Do Narrators Have Too Much Power?

Imagine being a character in a story. Are you worried that your story's narrator may inaccurately describe you? What if they reveal something you wanted to be kept secret? Do narrators have too much power!?

Literary Technique: Juxtaposition

Put a grumpy character next to a joyful one and they make each other stand out even more. Opposites are powerful!