Characterisation Bundle: Information Book, Quiz, Character Wheels and Worksheets

This bundle has been used on upper primary / lower secondary (middle school ) students and would be useful for English teachers who are required to teach Creative Writing or Short Story writing units.

The resources in this bundle were designed to:

• Develop students’ understandings of how characterisation is used in fictional texts
• Provide students with information on how to use effective characterisation in their own writing.

Included resources/tasks:

What is Characterisation? Information Book (19 page PDF file)

1. Characterisation: Definition and introduction

2. Direct Characterisation

3. Indirect Characterisation

4. Types of Characters

5. The Protagonist

6. The Antagonist

7. Good or Bad? (Anti-heroes and Anti-villains)

8. Character Archetypes (Hero, Rebel, Lover, Magician)

9. Character Archetypes (Creator, Explorer, Innocent, Sage)

10. Character Archetypes (Ruler, Everyman, Jester, Caregiver)

11. Character Details

12. Character Profile – Mowgli

13. Character Profile – Shere Kahn

14. Impacting Audiences (Readers)

15. Point of View

16. Narrator’s Perspective

17. The Back Story

18. Character development (Transformation and Positive Change)

19. Character development (Alteration and Decline)

Interactive PowerPoint Quiz:

• The questions in this quiz are based on the content that is covered in the What is Characterisation? Information Book. There is 1 version for students to use individually on their computers and 1 version that can be used with a classroom of students. The quiz can be uploaded and used in the same way on Google Slides (the sound effects will only work on the original PowerPoint files). The quiz has 15 questions, and instructions on how to open and use the quiz are included. An interactive scoring sheet that students can use when completing the quiz in the classroom has also been included. The scoring sheet was designed to be printed and used with the classroom version of the quiz, but has also been made interactive for digital/online use.

Character Wheels (Interactive PowerPoints)

1 x Character Archetype Wheel

1 x Character Development Wheel

*Students can use these wheels to support their ideas when completing the worksheets. These wheels can also be used for “character inspiration” with other creative writing tasks.

*Instructions for using the character wheels are included

11 Interactive PDF worksheets (all tasks can be printed or typed on directly). *Some read-only PowerPoint versions have also been included for those who want to upload the worksheets onto Google Slides.

• Students can used the What is Characterisation? Information Book as a guide when completing these worksheets. The worksheets focus on the following topics:

1. Appealing to readers’ emotions

2. Character Development (Writing a short story – Recommended use of the Character Development Wheel)

3. Character Development (exploring character arcs)

4. Create a Back Story

5. Create a Character

6. Direct or Indirect? (Identifying both types of characterisation)

7. Identify the character type

8. Point of View

9. Using Dialogue

10. What type of character? (Identifying character/personality traits)

11. Write a Short Story (Using the Character Archetype Wheel)

*Answer sheets for the worksheet tasks have been included.

*Simple black and white, printable versions of each worksheet have been included