Current Lesson

PEARSON ADULT LEARNING CENTRE
Advanced Composition
A Real Character: Describing a Person

February 12 and 13, 2003
 

This week students work in groups, sharing three descriptions of a person's character (indirect characterization). After the group work, students will write a description of character using each of the three methods.
 

Group Work:

Choose a person you know very well. Spend five to ten minutes writing down an example for each of the three headings below. Then, share the information, orally, with your group.

Do not use any general words, such as "untidy," "hardworking," or the like. Let your descriptions tell the story. Your fellow students should have a clear idea of that person's character from your indirect description.

Be sure to clarify any misunderstandings and help each other to improve your descriptions.

Physical characteristics:

(E.g.: He is a small man, with unkempt hair, whose trousers were patched at the knees.)

Behaviours:

(E.g.: Whenever he disagrees with me, he stands, arms across his chest, chin jutted out. Then, he waves his finger at me and says, "You have no idea, no idea at all.")

Anecdotes:

(E.g.: Once, when hiking, we were trying to find our way down from a mountain. John clambered down and began slipping towards a sixty foot cliff below. I said to him to hold on a second, put down my pack, held onto a sizable root and pulled him back up.)

Written Work (in class):

Write your examples in full, one for each category (Physical, Behaviours, and Anecdotes)

Homework: Write a single paragraph using the examples you have identified.

See Student Writing examples for this worksheet.

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