Lesson Title:  Whose Voice Is It?

 

By:  Pat Lowe

 

Burning Question:

 How does an author’s word choice affect the development of a character’s voice?

 

Objectives:

• Students will examine the author’s description of specific characters in fiction.
• Students will list characters’ traits and behaviors found in the text.
• Students will create a dialogue between two characters, and read it aloud.

 

Context: 

Grade Level:  4-6. The lesson could be presented midway in the study of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, or as a concluding assessment.

 

Materials:

·         Brook, Henry and Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer (Usborne Classics Retold). London: Usborne Publishing Ltd.,  2008.

·         Rasmusen, Kent. Mark Twain for Kids: His Life & Times, 21 Activities (For Kids series), Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2004.

• Small notebook for recording characters’ attributes
• Character analysis study sheet

 

Time Span: 

Two or three sessions of 30 - 40 minutes each, with additional time for extension activities

 

Procedures:

• During their study of the text, teacher and students will discuss the author’s descriptions of various characters, their behaviors, attitudes, and role in the story.
• Students will make written notes about several characters as the story proceeds, using the author’s statements as well as the student’s own words.
• Students will choose a character from the text, and write a brief description.
• Students will use specific quotes from the text to substantiate the character analysis.
• The teacher will create groups of students with different characters.
• Each student in the small group will read aloud the description of his/her character.  The other students will try to identify the character.
• With a partner, students will discuss and write a description of the relationship of their two characters to each other and the plot.
• Students will collaborate to write a dialogue between their two characters.
• Each set of partners will read their dialogues aloud to the class.
• When all the dialogues have been read aloud, the class will discuss similarities and differences among the perceptions of the characters made by different student authors.
• Class discussion should note words which created dissimilar impressions of the same character.  How were the characters’ voices different, based on the student authors’ word choice?

 

Extensions: 

• Students could write a two voice poem between two characters.
• Students could write a two voice poem between a character in Classics Retold: Tom Sawyer and a character in a contemporary piece of fiction.
• Students could write a poem in their own voice and that of a fictional character.
• Each student could write a maxim which his/her character might have said, or which the student believes to be true.  (A brief list of maxims is found in the Rasmussen book on page 136.)
• The maxims could be grouped by character, and bound in a class book.

 

Rationale:

By analyzing a fictional character, students will better perceive the concept of voice, and how an author uses language to portray characters.

 

Resources:

• Brook, Henry and Mark Twain.  Usborne Classics Retold:  Tom Sawyer. London: Usborne Publishing Ltd., 2008.
• Fleischman, Paul.  Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices.  New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988.
• Fleischman, Paul.   I Am Phoenix: Poems for Two Voices.  New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1985.
• Rasmussen, R. Kent.  Mark Twain for Kids: His Life and Times, 21 Activities.  Chicago:  Chicago Review Press, 2004.

 

 

·         Character Analysis Study Sheet

 

On a separate page for each character, make notes about three or four characters in Classics Retold:  Tom Sawyer.  Use specific quotes from the text.

 

    Think about the following ideas:

• Physical characteristics
• Attitudes and beliefs
• Thoughts and feelings
• Friends, enemies, and other relationships
• Actions and behaviors
• Opinions of other characters about him/her
• Purpose for the character in the plot of the story

 

    Write a brief description of two characters.

 

1—Name _____________________

 

 

 

 

 

2—Name _____________________

 

 

 

 

   Create a situation in which these two characters would talk to each other.  Make it different from anything Mark Twain wrote, but which would “fit” the story of Tom Sawyer.

 

Where ____________________________

 

When _____________________________

 

Why _______________________________

 

   Write a dialogue between these two characters.  Include specific details and quotes from the text, so someone who has not read the book will clearly understand these characters.