Grade 8

KAS ELA Standard: RL.8.3

Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character or provoke a decision.

A Character’s Playlist

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

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.

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?

Content Imperatives: Convergence

Add complexity by considering how multiple factors 🔄 Converge within one topic.

Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity

Anyone can say a character changed. Your students will prove it: four details from the beginning, four from the end, and the two traits those details point to.

Literary Technique: Juxtaposition

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

Motivation and Moral Development

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

“Much Ado About Nothing” Summary

Shakespeare’s Much Ado summarized in just five minutes!

Hamlet Summary

It’s Hamlet in just about five minutes!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Nothing could possibly go wrong with a love potion on the loose!

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.