Although Common Core Standard RI.3 has a lot packed into it, part of the standard involves understanding what characters a like, describing them, and their motivations within a story. These folding circles were used for students to add their classroom notes.
They can be refolded for easy storage within a notebook.
Talk about an attention getting object, students love writing notes in creative ways. They never complain about taking notes when it is done through interactive reading journals.
We really deeply analyzed characters. Students took notes about round and flat characters. They gained useful information about how characters grow and change throughout a story. Students played a game in which they were given a word secretly. They had to write down character actions. Next, they read what was written out loud. Another student had to infer that the words were describing a character being determined or jealous, etc. This really helped the students get better at paying attention to character actions in a story which in turn helped them learn how to infer about characters. All in all, these strategies and notes helped students review Common Core Standard RL.3 in a fun way without it feeling like they were learning.
My students also reviewed with self-teaching character analysis task cards. These have useful teaching tips to help students learn character traits, motive, character growth, etc.
