Creating a character for the year...

Vinny from Liverpool has emailed me an excellent idea he is working on with his Year 6 children at the moment.  At the start of the year he gets all the children to create their own character.  This character is then developed and used in all different genres of writing.  The theory behind the idea is that by the end of the year the children will be intimate with the characters actions, thoughts, feelings etc and they'll be able to use these in their writing.  Here's what Vinny emailed me:

What better way to open up the imagination of our aspiring writers and movie producers, than to encourage our pupils to invent and take ownership of their own characters.

Talk about how the most loved characters from books and films have evolved over time and remained with the authors for a very long time (i.e. Harry Potter or Anakin who ultimately changed from good to evil). Give pupils a choice of character cards.  Explain that they are nothing but dead/ soulless images, and that the pupils need to bring them to life, and consequently will develop a working relationship with them in a variety of contexts.  Create a mind map for their characters, perhaps with some of the following headings - what they say - what other people think about them - what mannerisms they have - what they look like - etc

Then allow pupils to expand further with these ideas, by creating a book about their characters.  You should notice an addictive enthusiasm in your class, especially if you reinforce that these characters will belong to you the author and will remain with you for a very long time, perhaps in some cases, to be developed into the next bestselling book.

Pupils could then be asked to record in the form of a diary extract, what there character got up to at the weekend.  If you are lucky enough to have a teaching assistant, encourage them to read and get to know the characters (as though they are real people - the pupils will love this).  During the forthcoming weeks and months, create humour with the class, i.e. How is Joe getting on? What did Jimmy think about the movie he went to see at the weekend, etc.

Now for the bit which helps us the teachers - when trying to tap into the pupils imagination, i.e. story writing, event sorts, etc, our pupils can comfortably place their real and meaningful characters in to the genres - immediately thinking about mannerisms and how the character would realistically react to situations.

I wouldn't surprise if this type of session is the start of something very special - but maybe I’m just fed up the same old boring mundane blockbuster movies.

I love this idea - I think I'm going to start developing it next half-term.  What do others think?

Comments

[Paul]

Its a great idea. Have been doing something very similar for the last 3 years in my y6 class. It really helps the children rather than them having to think of new characters each time they have to write in a different genre.