Thelen - Lesson Reflection #2

Thelen – LESSON REFLECTION #2
This lesson was a lot harder to implement than expected, but the outcomes were even greater. It took awhile for my students to see why characterization was so important to their stories. I had to tweak my plans a little in the end in order to make the lesson more meaningful to them; I showed them a copy of their draft before they added in the extra characterization and had them compare it to their draft after they added the characterization. They both agreed that their second draft was a lot easier to comprehend and that the plots were much better as a result of the lesson.
Both of my students responded well to the lesson and they interacted well with each other. I had to be involved more than I had expected and help them think of ways to develop their characters, but for the most part, my students participated and learned a lot from this lesson. Afterwards, their stories were much better and made a lot more sense (easier to comprehend!) and it made a big difference for them to be able to see it.
This was a very helpful activity, and I will definitely use this in my classroom in the future. It was easy to do once the idea of a concept web for a character was introduced and they saw an example. Having before and after copies of their stories really shows the student the differences and also drives home the main point of the lesson: developing your characters is a key part of having a good plot in your story. Having students work together also worked out well and gave each student twice the amount of practice with characterization. This activity could easily be done with an entire class as well.