Comparing Characters
Your young students will compare how two characters have changed in a story.
Characters’ Faults Can Also Be Strengths
Strength and weakness are often two sides of the same coin. Students will explore how a character’s flaw can be a benefit.
St. Patrick and Other Legends
How would real people feel about the legends that have been created about them?
Comparing Characters’ Bedrooms
What item’s in a character’s bedroom would reflect their deepest desires? And what if they toured a similar character’s room?
Student Introductions With Depth, Complexity, and Frames: Level Two
Once students know the prompts of Depth and Complexity, let’s take them much higher up Bloom’s Taxonomy.
A Character’s Playlist
What playlist of songs best goes with a character’s change over time?
Looking Closely at Holiday Photos
Let’s write from multiple perspectives using an old timey holiday photo!
Discussing An Important Decision from History
How would people with two different perspectives discuss a decision from history?
Analyze Characters Using Philosophy
What is the Brick Pig’s philosophy? How would he apply it to the characters in Harry Potter?
Think Like A Philosopher
What would Socrates have thought if he watched Frozen?
Holiday vs Holiday (from a Mascot’s Perspective)
Want something to do during the holiday season that is both fun and involves thinking? Get students writing about what a snowman would think about Halloween or what a ghost would think about Thanksgiving.
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.
Not Like The Others: Charlotte’s Web
Four Charlotte’s Web characters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Writing Sample: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
A passage from “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.
Writing Sample: The Fall of the House of Usher
A passage from “The Fall of the House of Usher” to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.
Writing Sample: Anne of Green Gables
An intriguing passage from Anne of Green Gables to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.
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!?
Paradox: Crocodile Dilemma
A crocodile makes a deal. But the deal creates a paradox. Can your students untangle a 2,000-year-old logic puzzle?
More Specific than “Smart”
When students are told that they’re “smart”, what does this word actually mean to them? (Psst. It isn’t what we intended.)
Identifying Author’s Voice
What if… Edgar Allen Poe wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?
Content Imperatives: Convergence
Add complexity by considering how multiple factors 🔄 Converge within one topic.
Depth and Complexity: ⚖️ Ethics
Want to add drama to any topic? Use the Ethics prompt!
Depth and Complexity: 👓 Multiple Perspectives
Every topic looks different depending on who’s looking. This prompt teaches students to see through someone else’s eyes.
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.
Characters’ Talents and Multiple Intelligences
How do characters from novels line up with Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences?
Literary Technique: Juxtaposition
Put a grumpy character next to a joyful one and they make each other stand out even more. Opposites are powerful!
Asynchrony: Developing At Different Rates (For Students)
For students! In some areas, a student may be shockingly advanced, while in others… surprisingly average. This is asynchrony in action.
Motivation and Moral Development
Can someone do the right thing, but for the wrong reason?
Think Like An Economist
How would an economist read Goldilocks? How would they see a rainforest? How would they study the American Revolution?
Better Stories Part 4: Character Archetypes
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.