Responding to Literature

Responding to Literature Learning Activity

Choose strategies that focus on the major elements of literature—character, setting, plot, and theme—to help your students respond to literature. Print out the graphic below, consult the lists below, and fill in each bubble with strategies to use with your students. For even more strategies, take a look at the links under 'Additional resources.

Character

Explanation: https://literaryterms.net/character/

Purpose: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/protagonist-1277128

Character analysis: https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-write-a-character-analysis-1857638

Character web: https://www.dailyteachingtools.com/free-graphic-organizers.html#CharacterWebs

Interview: One student roleplays a character from the story and answers questions from an 'interviewer.'

Act it out: Two students roleplay characters from the story and talk about what has happened to them.

Tableau: A reading strategy used to increase comprehension by connecting to the emotions of the characters. Students read a portion of text, freeze, then discuss what the characters are feeling at that specific moment in the story.

WALTER (Words, Actions, Looks, Thoughts, [othErs] Respond)

https://www.scholastic.com/content/dam/teachers/blogs/mary-blow/migrated-files/character-traits-with-walter.pdf

Setting

Explanation: http://literary-devices.com/content/setting

Purpose: https://www.texasgateway.org/resource/explain-influence-setting-plot-development-literary-textfiction-english-7-reading

Draw places portrayed in the story.

Design a travel brochure based on the setting in the story.

Make a poster of the setting.

Map the world of the story.

Reconstruct

Build a house or other building from the story out of cardboard or construction paper.

Plot