CCSS ELA Standard: 1.RL.9

Your young students will compare how two characters have changed in a story.

Strength and weakness are often two sides of the same coin. Students will explore how a character’s flaw can be a benefit.

Who will win the tournament of mythological creatures!?

What item’s in a character’s bedroom would reflect their deepest desires? And what if they toured a similar character’s room?

What if we rewrote a story’s climax into a totally different genre?

What might a creature named “Hypermnemonicus” be like?

What playlist of songs best goes with a character’s change over time?

What if your students rewrote Dickens in the style of Hemingway and vice versa?

Have you ever noticed that some stories have awfully similar problems? What if we looked for the most unusual way of solving a repeating problem?

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

A passage from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

A passage from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

What if one character dressed up as another for Halloween? Would the Cat in the Hat pick Captain Jack Sparrow, because they’re both chaotic yet good-natured people? Would Elsa dress up as The Ice King since they are both lonely?

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.

Four Charlotte’s Web characters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.

A passage from “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

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

Every fantasy story has patterns hiding underneath the magic. Once your students see the elements, they’ll spot them everywhere — and use them in their own writing.

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

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

How would an economist read Goldilocks? How would they see a rainforest? How would they study the American Revolution?

Take direction instruction beyond a monotonous practice of the same skill over and over.

If your students’ stories are packed with endless ninja fights or arguments between frenemies, it’s time to expose them to a wider range of conflicts.

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.