by Flipping Words
9th - 11th Grade
Enhance your students' repertoire of character traits, enable students to demonstrate how authors reveal character, and let students practice those author techniques. At the same time, promote students' inference skills and develop their ability to cite textual evidence. All with this free set of 48 task cards showing 96 character traits.
Fresh Approach
This activity provides a fresh approach to the study of character and character traits. Instead of studying a character by examining their character traits, this activity studies character traits by examining actions and words that illustrate that trait. Students begin with a character trait and explore that trait by finding or coming up with actions & words to illustrate that trait. Illustrations can be drawn from literature or from real life. Students can cite textual evidence to illustrate a fictional character's traits or they can illustrate traits with actions & words drawn from their everyday life experience. Responses can be informal oral responses with partners or groups, or written responses, either informal or as preparation for more formal pieces of writing.
3 Tasks
The front of each card lists 2 character traits. The back of each card prompts students to illustrate traits by thinking of something that:
A. someone might do that shows one of the traits
B. someone might say that shows one of the traits
C. a person with the top character trait might say/do to a person with the bottom character trait
Adapt the prompts to ANY novel, play, or other type of fiction by asking students to think of the story's characters and to find textual evidence – something the character says, something the character does, or both – to illustrate the trait on the card.
Perfect for early finishers, as a bell-ringer, as practice for making inferences and for finding textual evidence. Great for a focused review and as a revision exercise, too!
I’ve included a number of additional teaching suggestions in the Teaching Notes, and I've included a page to show which CCSS standards are being met.
In all:
• 96 character traits on 48 task cards: 12 cards per page; 4 double-sided pages
• 3 tasks on the back of each card
• 1 page of teaching notes with ideas on how to use cards
plus a page showing which CCSS standards are being met
(10 pages, 1 pdf file).
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for more resources that focus on character? You might like...
★ BUNDLE Short Story Unit - 4 Weeks with 8 Stories - and Unit Test
★ Chekhov Short Story: Literary Analysis
★ "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
_________________________________________________________________________________________
If you like this freebie, click here to follow me... and get info about new products, new freebies, and more. I'd be thrilled to have you along!
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/FREE-Character-Traits-TASK-CARDS-for-Textual-Evidence-and-Inference-Skills-3783551