Chapter 4 Writer's Workshop

I actually used this chapter in my ten day unit plan. My unit was on Characters. I had to do anything and everything that included characters and how they apply to reading, writing and English in general. I started off my unit by actually reading the first paragraph of the chapter. My students looked at me perplexed. Yet, I got their attention. My absolute favorite line in this entire chapter is located in that first paragraph: "Now don't misunderstand: By "action" I do not mean merely street fights, car chases, and passionate love scenes. By "action," I mean any thought, word, or deed that engages your character with some other character, and thereby becomes an event." I think that is such a good statement for a couple of reasons. My final assessment for my students was them composing a very short, two-page narrative. When I told them that I wanted them to develop their characters, they all become flustered and clearly anxious about the assignment. After reading this to them again they started to settle down. I remember Dr. Kist reading this to us in class one day and I knew that I would be using it to help my unit.

I think it's a great chapter with all the in-depth looks we see for characters. Koch talks about the point of views, roles of characters, voice, dialogue etc. When I am writing a story I never really think about the depth that my characters can have. I have the power to develop them into such dynamic people. With this chapter I did a lot of activities with my students. We did activities that allowed them to develop characters that didn't even pertain to what they were writing for their narratives. I talked to them about the ability to really get into developing their characters. Like our activity in class where we acted out skits with random stuffed animals. I did something very similar to this in my classroom as well. My students loved it and afterward I allowed time to begin writing and I think that really helped them open up their creative minds and get going on their writing.

When I wrote my own narrative for my students, I modeled characters from my life that were real. I developed them in ways that I only could have. Nobody else knew what had happened in my story. I had all the power. I think that really was my overall message for my unit. I challenged my students to be creative, use the pencil as a weapon when writing. "Give me more, more details, more dialogue, more actions, more adventures, more characteristics, when in doubt, write more." This was my "lecture" at the end of the day before their paper was due. Below is a funny clip from Family Guy. I chose this because we see the dynamic development of Meg, Brian and Stewie within a short two minutes. Little things like dialogue, scenario and body language tell a lot about characters. Although this is a video, you can see how this being written would give a great indication of who these characters really are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lich59xsjik