Chasing Characters from the Page to the Pen July 17, 2017

Have you ever asked a student when they are in the middle of their book to tell you about the story and they refer to all the characters in pronouns and basically do a retell of the "what has happened" rather than consider thoughtfully about the journey a character has taken across the text?  This one day workshop is an in depth look at character development across texts. We will spend considerable time analyzing, tracking, and noticing characters.  Growing vocabulary and strategies for identifying feelings and traits as well as clear steps to understand motive, character change and analyzing social issues and their impact on characters.   Additionally, we will look at how a close study of characters can bridge to essay as well as the reading of biographies.  This work can quickly translate to literary essay or essays about people in general. The work we do in a unit of study on characters in fiction becomes a cornerstone to the work we move kids into with literary non-fiction.  Registration fee includes handout for the day and some extra surprises!