Characterization

Since I was showing you character photos yesterday, I thought I'd share photos of the characterization evidence my 9th graders gathered about me by playing detective in my room. They could look in my desk, around the room, anywhere they wanted except my purse.

Here's the class debriefing:

These kids are smart. All that from five minutes of browsing? Let's see what they got right . . .

Well, they're doing pretty well. I can't stand Jazz Pepsi -- those cans in the class fridge belong to the Monsters. And I'm not a Republican. The Republican cap that led them to believe so was left behind last year by a kid doing his research project on politics. So what else did they get right . . .?

They're doing well. It's not so much that I like stuffed animals but that my DH is really good at those claw machines and I hate to discard his gifts. I do like some classic literature, but I think they overlooked all the current commercial fiction on my bookshelves, too. One more column . . .

The bananas one is funny. Someone gave me a box of bananas and I've been handing them out for days to get rid of them. You notice they called me beautiful, right? Listen, kids, flattery isn't getting you out of anything.

Overall, they did really, really well. I like this exercise. It gets them moving yet provides a purpose and is a nice segue into looking for characterization in the literature they read.