Creative Writing:Characterisation

Thursday 14th January 2021

Learning Purposes

• To explore what makes a literary character memorable.

• To infer information and ideas from a character description.

• To create our own characters for use in imaginative writing.

Future learning:To enhance our creative writing skills

To develop our reading skills by reading at home for enjoyment

Prior learning:1. Which pronouns do we use

for writing in the first person?

2. Which pronouns do we use for writing in the third person?

Starter

Look at the images below.

How would you describe each of these characters in five words?

EXT: Pick one of your words for each character and explain why it summarises that character best.

Key Words

For the following words, give yourself one minute to think of as many synonyms or antonyms as you possibly can…

a word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another

a word opposite in meaning to another

Vocabulary

• Provide as many synonyms as you can for the word..

Kind

Highlight, circle or underline your 3 most effective synonyms (these might come in handy later)…

Vocabulary

• Provide as many synonyms as you can for the word..

Nasty

Highlight, circle or underline your 3 most effective synonyms (these might come in handy later)…

Vocabulary

• Provide as many antonyms as you can for the word..

Pretty

Highlight, circle or underline your 3 most effective antonyms (these might come in handy later)…

Vocabulary

• Provide as many synonyms as you can for the word..

Walked

Highlight, circle or underline your 3 most effective synonyms (these might come in handy later)…

Vocabulary

• Provide as many antonyms as you can for the word..

Happy

Highlight, circle or underline your 3 most effective antonyms (these might come in handy later)…

Vocabulary

• Provide as many synonyms as you can for the word..

Old

Highlight, circle or underline your 3 most effective synonyms (these might come in handy later)…

What makes a character memorable?

• Develop a mind map that explores the above question.

• You can discuss a character’s personality as well as their appearance.

• Include examples of memorable characters to support your ideas.

• E.g. Professor Snape from Harry Potter is memorable for having a (mostly) cold and uncaring personality. He only wearing black and has long, black, greasy hair.

Memorable characters

Description

Read this description from Roald Dahl’s The Witches:

The first thing I noticed about this woman was her size. She was tiny, probably no more than four and a half feet tall. She looked quite young, I guessed about twenty-five or six, and she was very pretty. She had on a rather stylish long black dress that reached right to the ground and she wore black gloves that came up to her elbows. Unlike the others, she wasn’t wearing a hat.

Very slowly, the young lady raised her hands to her face. I saw her gloved fingers unhooking something behind her ears, and then...then she caught hold of her cheeks and lifted her face clean away! I very nearly screamed out loud.

Her real face was so crumpled and wizened, so shrunken and shrivelled, it looked as though it had been pickled in vinegar. It was a fearsome and ghastly sight.

What impression are we given of this character? What information can we infer from the introduction? Complete the character worksheet.

Characterisation

You are going to create your own character that you will use later on in a piece of writing.

1) Draw an outline of your character and fill it with strong adjectives to describe your character. Take a whole page to do this.

2) Complete the sentence starters about your character. Try to reveal something about their personality in each.

1) His/Her eyes were tinted with…2) The clothing that he/she wore was…3) He/She seemed to move with…4) When he/she walked into the room, people would…

Characterisation

• On the next slide there will be some settings for you to place your character into. You could make up your own if you would prefer to do so.

• Think about how your character might interact with the environment. What do they like about it? What don’t they like about it? Why?

• Use the extract from The Witches if you get stuck.

Success Criteria:➢ Your description should include information about

your character’s appearance and personality.➢ You should describe how your character behaves in

your chosen scenario. ➢ Give yourself half an hour to write as much detailed

description as you can. Don’t forget to use the synonyms that you came up with earlier!

Self-assessment

Look over your writing. Read through your work and indicate where you have done the following:

1) Made use of effective adjectives to describe your character.

2) Revealed something about your character’s personality through the description.

What do you think you have done well? What could you have done to improve?

Within my writing, I think that I have successfully achieved…

To improve, I think that I need to…

Plenary

• Reading books can help to develop your writing skills as you pick up on good writing habits.

• Spend the remaining time reading a book of your choice.

• You can pick a character from this book and explain what is good about their characterisation – what do you like about the way that they have been presented?