#2325. Character Collage

Literature, level: Senior
Posted Thu Jul 26 10:58:42 PDT 2001 by April Flagg (aflagg@washburn-hs.sad45.k12.me.us).
Washburn District High School, Washburn, United States
Materials Required: Magazines, Scissors, glue or tape, coloring supplies
Activity Time: anywhere from 50-100 minutes
Concepts Taught: Character analysis

This lesson plan is designed to help students understand certain characters in a particular novel. There is no certain novel it NEEDS to be used with, so I will merely give the steps.
1) Put student into groups, two or three students per group, four is too many for this project.
2) Display the main characters of your class novel on the board. You could also write them on a piece of paper if you wish the groups to select by chance.
3) I normally let the groups select their character.
4) Explain that their goal is to show a picture of what the character would look like. However, this "picture" is actually a collage of different features they will find searching through magazines.
5) Tell the students their choices must be explained either on the poster itself or on a seperate sheet of paper.
6) Remember to explain to the students that this is not to look like a photograph. This is a collage of the different traits, both physical and emotional, that their character has.
7) Usually the students take two class periods to finish this activity. (or 100 minutes.)
I usually set aside a period to let the students present their poster to their classmates.
Student LOVE this activity, I have had excellent outcomes from it.
Hope you do to!