The Situation
Your students have read a story and are now analysing the characterisation.
The Solution
When analysing character, it is important to look beyond the obvious like appearance, speech and motivations.
Another aspect that we can explore is the psychology of a character. This entails making connections between the beliefs and behaviours of a character (see Teaching…Beliefs, Values, Attitudes, Behaviour for more information on initial instructions).
Using the document below, students can write information from the text for each heading. I have provided prompt questions to unpack further.
The purpose is to allow students to pull back the layers of behaviour and make connections as to what psychology is driving a character’s actions.
Once they have filled out their chart, you can provide more advanced questions such as, how have values impacted the behaviour or motivations of the character?
The English Classroom 