Students read Raymond Carver's story "A Small, Good Thing," focusing on characterization in order to develop one of the static characters: the hit-and-run driver who causes Scotty's death more fully.

A read-aloud of Patricia Polacco's "Thank You, Mr. Falker" helps promote deeper comprehension through questioning to achieve personal connections and discussions of character and theme.

In this lesson, students incorporate analyses of characters from "The Crucible" with examinations of original seventeenth-century portraits of Puritans to create a visual portrait of the character. The project culminates in a Portrait Gallery Walk where students present and defend their artwork.

"The Greedy Porcupine" is a Northwestern Band of Shoshone tribe tale. According to Shoshone culture, this tale teaches a valuable lesson that everyone should be proud of who he or she is, not envious of others. Everyone should also be grateful for what they have and avoid complaining. Everyone is given special gifts and talents, which should be used appropriately. If talents are misused, they could be taken away.After reading the story students willb identify characters and the lesson or moral of the story. The students will create a  character map to aid in comprehension of the story and provide the basis for the discussion in character education, tying in with the moral of the story.

Students get the inside scoop on a story when they create interview questions and answers for characters in the books they read.

After reading a work of literature as a class, students will brainstorm "crimes" committed by characters from that text. Groups of students will work together to act as the prosecution or defense for the selected characters, while also acting as the jury for other groups. Students will use several sources to research for their case, including the novel and internet resources. All the while, students will be writing a persuasive piece to complement their trial work.

While this lesson uses Shakespeare's The Tempest, there are several other text options. Handouts (except for the model case handout) are generic so that they can be used with any text.

Using the character of Edward Cullen from the Twilight series, this lesson introduces the Byronic hero and asks students to compare the Byronic hero to the traditional hero and villain.

Students analyze the Gwendolyn Brooks poem "We Real Cool" and then write about how the character's pool hall days might influence who the character becomes fifty years in the future.

Students work on a guided characterization project, using a graphic map to illustrate the ways a character from a book series grows and evolves over the course of the story.

Examine how Nancy, who serves as a mother figure to Oliver, contradicts 19th-century England’s conventional thinking that the poor are morally corrupt, in this excerpt from Oliver Twist | MASTERPIECE. Dickens created a complex character in Nancy, who is a victim of circumstance. She cannot escape criminal ways and an abusive partner, yet her care and concern for Oliver reveal the complexities of her character.

This activity, inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper and the stories of Raymond Carver, challenges students to get inside contemporary life and characters through the creation of monologues.

Students really get into character in this lesson as they act out the parts of a script and analyze character motivations and dialogue.

Working as career counselors for a literary character, students find a job for the character, prepare a resume, and design questions and answers to prepare them for a job interview.

Students read Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, demonstrate comprehension of the story by involving themselves in discussions, and analyze the characters in preparation for a class "press conference."

Students analyze personal homepages, as well as a character in a book they have read, and then create a homepage for the character.

Everyone knows that "Star Wars" character Darth Vader is a villain. This lesson asks students to explore how they know such things about heroes and villains they encounter in texts. After examining how moviemakers communicate the villainy of Darth Vader, students examine a passage from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that describes the villain Voldemort, noting how Rowling communicates details about the character. Students then read novels in small groups, with each group member tracking a character in a reading log. When they finish their novels, students design posters and present details on their novels to the class. After the presentations, students make observations on how authors develop character and write journal entries reflecting on what they learned.