Bringing Characters to Life

At the end of our unit about following characters into meaning, students completed an individual performance assessment.  Each student choose a character from a just right book and then selected a passage to read aloud that would demonstrate character traits of their chosen character.  We filmed their presentations and checked if they:

• accurately identify character traits and show them with their text selection and representation
• read with accuracy (correct words)
• read with fluency and expression
• brought to life the character in the book for themselves and an audience

The students were stars on the stage really bringing out the characters traits and bring that character to life in our classroom.  They had fantastic costumes.  They read loudly and clearly.  They were acting out scenes in the story.  We had teddy bears tumbling.  We had monkeys jumping.  We had Junie B. Jones hiding in the laundry and Greg Heffley in his mom's bathrobe.  We had Freddy in his underwear and Judy Moody with her George Washington cherry pit.  The classroom was the stage and we were living like the characters in the books we've been reading--the ultimate envisioning of a character.  I think we have some future movie stars in the making already!

We also discovered that reading for an audience, we can find out that we are missing something that we don't even realize with repeated reading for example reading words accurately which can change the meaning.  This made us realize that even though we're third graders, we should still read aloud to a parent or adult and talk about the words that are new or difficult for us!  We used to think that now that we read chapter books, we can just read to ourselves -- but we learned that we might be mistaking the word "silence" for "slice," or the word "yipe" for "yippee," or the word "khakis" for "kaa-his?" (what are those?).  When we misread words we get a different picture which maybe confusing.  When we read aloud to an adult who helps us notice those misread words then we build our vocabulary and get to better understand and enjoy the books we're reading.

Turn on your speakers or attach your headphones and watch our "Bringing Characters to Life Videos."  Then answer the question!

What do you like about our presentations?