Character Entries

Whenever students get stuck or say they don't have an entry or something to write about I always tell them to examine or think more about the main character and/or secondary characters.  So much strong thinking comes from analyzing characters and their actions, motivations, their feelings, how they change, etc.  Thinking about characters is great work. 

(3rd grade chart)

Character traits are something we begin working on as early as kindergarten. By the time we get to 3rd grade and higher we want to expose students to more sophisticated vocabulary.  This is one way we found to raise the level of rigor in a simple character entry. This chart grows throughout the year.  You can see the possibilities are endless.

(4th grade chart)

You can see the thought + evidence + higher level thinking. Sometimes higher level thinking is simply a new understanding ot perhaps something you realize now....it is not always earth shattering but you can see how by adding higher level thinking (using the elaboration prompts) it beefs up an entry.

Elaboration prompts below: