Transcript Life As We Knew It

The Giver
Inferring Character traits
Character
• A character is a person or an animal in a story,
play, or another literary work.
• Writers create characters by telling us what they
look like, what they say, how they act, how they
think, and what other characters say or think
about them.
Inferences
• An inference is an educated guess based on
evidence.
• When you make inferences about characters in a
story, you try to guess what they are like by:
▫ Taking note of any information the writer gives
you directly.
▫ Paying attention to what the character thinks,
says, and does.
▫ Watching how others react to the character.
▫ Thinking about people you know in real life—or
from other stories—who resemble the character.
Characterization
• The process of revealing the personality of a
character in a story is called characterization. A
writer can reveal a character in the following
ways:
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Words
Actions
Thoughts and feelings
Appearance
Comments made by other characters
Direct comments by the narrator
Direct Characterization
• the writer makes straightforward statements
about a character's personality and tells the
reader exactly what the character is like.
▫ Direct comments by the narrator
Indirect Characterization
• The writer reveals information about a character
and his personality through that character's
thoughts, words, and actions, along with how
other characters respond to that character,
including what they think and say about him.
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Words
Actions
Thoughts and feelings
Appearance
Comments made by other characters
Your turn:
Descriptive Sentence
“I hate the idea of having
all those people out there
watching me during
Circle Justice meetings,”
Cole whispered.
Cole got up before dawn
and made his way down
to the icy pond. He
would be the first to soak
in the water today.
Inferred Character
Traits
Method of
Characterization
shy
-words
-thoughts and feelings