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MyLe Murphy
RED4335-0002
April 30, 2014
Sympathetic Characters Unit

Purpose/Rationale:
This lesson is intended for a 50-55 minute regular sixth grade language arts class during the
second portion of the first semester. These four lesson plans will work into a longer unit on literature
analysis by exploring character analysis - specifically Students will be introduced and work on
sympathetic characters within two texts, Edward Bloors Tangerine and Rodman Philbricks Freak the
Mighty. Students will have completed the two texts by this unit plan. These texts present the audience
with multiple characters that both employ sympathy and encouragement from the audience as well as
characters that are easily disliked and hated. Students will identify and manifest their own sympathetic
characters based on their consensus from the two main texts and samples of real-life sympathetic figures.

Assessment:
Students will be informally assessed on participation and being respectful during discussion.
Students will be formally assessed on their drafts when they turn them in during the following class (for
homework). Students will get a completion grade for working on drafts during class. Students will be also
informally and formally assessed on how they worked within their groups: clarity on their character
description, how they presented feedback to their peers, and similar aspects.

Materials:
Freak the Mighty Rodman Philbrick
The Mighty film adaption of Rodman Philbricks novel
Tangerine Edward Bloor
Paper, Pencils
Assorted YouTube video clips

Day 1:
Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its
development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.3 Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact
(e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.7 Compare and contrast a written story, drama, or poem to its
audio, filmed, staged, or multimedia version, analyzing the effects of techniques unique to each
medium (e.g., lighting, sound, color, or camera focus and angles in a film).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.A Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and
point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that
unfolds naturally and logically.

Objectives:
Students will be able to:
Recognize and identify sympathetic characters in varying texts
Analyze and reason characteristics of sympathetic and unsympathetic characters
Summarize and analyze characters roles within the texts


Time: Teacher will Student will
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5-7
minutes
Introduce students to sympathetic characters
through YouTube videos that evoke
sympathy or encouragement from the
audience.
Actively listen and observe
10-12
minutes
Question students about what students had
thought about the YouTube clips leading to
questions about characters if students do not
arrive to it on their own. Look into other
types of sympathetic texts, like movie
trailers, news clips, TV shows and
commercials.
Analyze these texts - noting certain points that
correlate in all of the texts. Compare the
sympathetic characters to these unsympathetic
characters distinguishing words, motions, and
phrases that unsympathetic characters used.
Create a list of words that they heard from the
texts that had evoked the right amount of
sympathy.
20-25
minutes
Monitor and assist students in discussing
their texts. If students appear to be finished
early, teacher will question students on their
texts how the sympathetic and
unsympathetic characters were portrayed.
Asking questions like: Were there characters
that seemed to not take either side for your
sympathy? What acts did characters do that
made you root for them or hate them? How
did each character push the plot? Did the
unsympathetic character affect the
conclusion in the way you thought they
would have? Why?
Provide samples of characters that are
sympathetic and unsympathetic as well as
characters that are either too extreme (the
audience absolutely dislikes the character) or
are too bland (the character evokes no
emotion). Students may choose to pick
characters from texts or real-life and will
practice write why they think those characters
are sympathetic or unsympathetic. Students
will then discuss with two other students in a
group setting the scene of context, plotline
and the characters roles within the text.
5-7
minutes
Debrief the reasoning behind activities
practicing identifying and explaining
sympathetic and unsympathetic characters as
well as having students implement their
understanding of characters roles within the
text and how specific traits pushed certain
plot points.
Discuss what they got out of the activities and
how working with their peers characters
affected the perspectives of the students.
Students will discuss their interest in certain
points of one anothers choices.

Day 2:
Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.3 Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact
(e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.7 Compare and contrast a written story, drama, or poem to its
audio, filmed, staged, or multimedia version, analyzing the effects of techniques unique to each
medium (e.g., lighting, sound, color, or camera focus and angles in a film).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.A Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and
point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that
unfolds naturally and logically.

Objectives:
Students will be able to:
Identify and analyze sympathetic and unsympathetic character traits
Identify and analyze emotion that is presented from specific words, phrases or sounds
Create their own drafts of scripts or songs in the format of previously seen samples
Discuss their drafts with peers
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Edit drafts to better portray characters within draft

Procedure:
Time Teacher will Student will
3
minutes
Review the previous lesson, discussing key
points of the previous lesson answering
any questions that are asked.
Discuss the key points from previous lessons and
ask any questions that were not answered for the
students before.
5-7
minutes
Introduce to different types of songs that
evoke sympathy for the song's focus in
different ways.
Journal while listening to the songs on what they
perceived within the songs and how the songs
showed sympathetic emotions in different ways.
Discuss their findings based on their journals
with the class.
15-20
minutes
Monitor students as well as provide
assistance in any matter that students need.
Teacher can assist students in the creative
process (discussing ideas or characters that
the student can replicate from their own
life or from previous readings to use for
drafts).
Create short script drafts as if they were
informing the populations about a sympathetic
character that involves the traits of a sympathetic
character similar to those previously seen. Use
similar language like the media that the student
was inspired by (song, movie, TV commercial)
as well as creating an unsympathetic character
based on the list and discussion over the traits.
12-15
minutes
Monitor and help edit students works that
teacher sees could use more assistance than
just peer editing. Teacher will have noted
previously students who need more help
with writing and will take time to work
with these students first before helping
other students.
Work on their short script drafts presenting
their work to two peers for clarity, good
representation of point, and employment of traits
that depict sympathetic and unsympathetic
characters. Students will edit their work in
response to peers feedback. Review and provide
feedback for fellow classmates. *
5
minutes
Debriefing reasoning for lesson and key
points that were present that furthered the
point of the activity. Discussing what
students gained, liked, disliked about the
activity.
Discussing the activity: how it furthered their
understanding of employing sympathy within the
medias and how peer editing transformed their
perspective as well as how listening to others
work affected their ideas of character
representation.

Day 3:
Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.7 Compare and contrast a written story, drama, or poem to its
audio, filmed, staged, or multimedia version, analyzing the effects of techniques unique to each
medium (e.g., lighting, sound, color, or camera focus and angles in a film).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.A Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and
point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that
unfolds naturally and logically.

Objectives:
Students will be able to:
Identify and analyze character traits of sympathetic and unsympathetic characters within multiple
texts
Compare and contrast portrayals of sympathetic and unsympathetic characters within the multiple
text depictions
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Distinguish specific differences within the multiple texts and how the changes affected the
audience perception of characters.

Time Teacher will Student will
3-5
minutes
Review the previous days lesson with students.
Discussing key points of the previous lesson.
Answering any questions that were unanswered
during the previous lesson.
Discuss the key points from previous
lessons and ask any questions that were
not answered for the students before.
30-35
minutes
Play clips from film The Mighty that were
excerpted from the novel. Monitor student behavior
and keep students on task.



Observe the video as well as note
specific differences between portrayals.
Once the movie clips have finished,
students will compare their perceptions
of both texts and how those texts
portrayed the sympathetic and
unsympathetic characters in a venn
diagram.
Analyze these texts - noting certain
points that correlate in all of the texts.
Compare the sympathetic characters to
these unsympathetic characters
distinguishing words, motions, and
phrases that unsympathetic characters
used. Create a list of words that they
heard from the texts that had evoked the
right amount of sympathy.
Students will also note the differences
between the film adaption and the book
in order to have an idea how visually
seeing a characters behavior affects the
sympathy of that character within the
text.
5-10
minutes
Debrief on activity, discussing key points and
reasoning behind activity.
Discuss what they got out of the activity
and how multimedia affected their
understanding of the character traits of
sympathetic and unsympathetic
characters.


Day 4:
Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.B Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and
description, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.C Use a variety of transition words, phrases, and clauses to
convey sequence and signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.D Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and
sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.5 With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop
and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new
approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed.

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Objectives:
Students will be able to:
Identify and analyze characteristic traits
Implement characteristics into student work
Create sympathetic characters and unsympathetic characters

Time Teacher will Student will
5
minutes
Review previous lesson, discussing key
points with students as well as answer
questions.
Discuss the key points from previous lessons and
ask any questions that were not answered for the
students before.
15-20
minutes
Monitor students for being on-task,
participating in the activity. Teacher will
provide assistance and guidance if
students need it.
Using Tangerine and Freak the Mighty, students
will practice voice in one of the characters that is
in one text to a character in the other text - student
will choose the two characters that they find the
most interesting. Replicate one character's tone
and voice (using words that the character would
use) and write about a situation that happened
within the other character's book or how the
students character would have acted within the
other text. Students have leeway on what they
want to write within the letters as long as it is
appropriate.
5-7
minutes
Monitor students for being on-task,
participating in the activity. Teacher will
provide assistance and guidance if
students need it.
Students will present their letters to 1 peer by
having peer read the letter quietly peer will
provide feedback: stating whether one another
had captured the character the student had
intended to portray, how that student captured the
character (or had not).
10-15
minutes
Monitor students for being on-task,
participating in the activity. Teacher will
provide assistance and guidance if
students need it.
Students will spend time on revising their letter if
need be and begin drafting their response letter
from the one character that the original character
had written to. Students will work on draft for
homework and be edited in further class periods.
5
minutes
Debrief and discuss activity and how
students felt about taking on character
traits in order to write, what students had
found challenging, etc.
Discuss and explain students works and what
they found positive, negative, challenging,
rewarding and whether student feels confident
with sympathetic and unsympathetic characters.

Accommodations: Students that need further assistance alongside their IEP forms will be provided
accommodations that include enlarged print, personal copies of directions (as well as roughly translated
versions in their L1 in the case that the ELL may need more help in the English language), provided
teacher assistance. Students that are physically impaired will not be asked to move around unless it is
more beneficial for said student to sit in a particular spot (front of classroom, by teacher, near exit, etc.).
Students that are behind reading level or may be retread will not be isolated or left out because all
students will be given the same tools and resources as well as further side assistance by teacher. Further
resources may be brought into class by teacher if it is obvious that students in this category or in overall
are struggling.