Exploros | Analyzing Characters

Engage

Overview

In this experience, students read “The Open Window” and describe the conflicts and responses it contains and their effects on the plot. Next, they examine and explain the characters’ personalities as contributors to the characters’ responses. Finally, they imagine and write about how different personalities would have led to a different plot.

Students will work together in pairs to analyze and explain the story “The Open Window” in scenes 3 and 4, but each student will post an individual response.

Objectives

Describe characters in a story.
Explain how a character’s personality affects the story.
Analyze how a character’s internal and external responses contribute to the plot.

Duration

One class period. You may choose to have the students read the story (provided in the Student Pack) at home before beginning the experience.

Vocabulary Words in “The Open Window”

nerve cure: treatment for mental illness
formal: stiff, not relaxed; done according to strict rules
rural: having to do with the countryside
masculine: having to do with males
habitation: dwelling
tragedy: (1) great misfortune (2) a play about a character’s tragic fate
moor: open, wild rolling land
treacherous: dangerous
bog: small swamp or marsh
convey: express
sympathetic: feeling sorry for someone
romance: a fictitious, embellished account of events

The people in a story—the characters—interact with each other in all the same ways that people do in real life. In this experience, you’ll learn about the kinds of things that occur through those interactions.

Objectives

Describe characters in a story.
Explain how a character’s personality affects the story.
Analyze how a character’s internal and external responses contribute to the plot.

Think about a time when you had a disagreement with someone.

What did you think and feel about your disagreement? What did you do about it? Describe the situation and how you responded. Write your response in approximately three sentences.

Post your answer

You just identified a conflict—a problem or struggle between people. And you have identified two kinds of responses that you made. One was within you, what you were feeling—an internal response. The other was outside you, what you did—an external response. Starting in the next scene, you’ll look closely at how characters’ responses affect the stories in which they live.

Invite students to give other examples of conflicts and interactions in stories you have read recently in class—or in their own lives.

When everyone is ready to continue, unlock the next scene.