Content Objectives and Unit Overview
Through the study of this unit, students will investigate the process of characterization, practice the inference skills necessary to master it, and explore the techniques used in creating it within writing. In Boy: Tales of Childhood, Roald Dahl paints memorable pictures of the characters from his childhood before detailing his experience with those characters. As students come to chapters in Dahl's book that contain rich character sketches, they will identify the information in the text that allows them to characterize. As guiding questions, students will be asked to identify the ways in which Dahl provides opportunities for his readers to characterize and consider why an author would craft characters in the way that Dahl does. Students should be able to pull out writer's techniques in the process of characterization, such as the use of vivid adjectives in description, showing details, figurative language, and the inclusion of dialogue. The second part of my unit will focus on the teaching and application of these techniques in guiding students to write several short autobiographical pieces about their childhood.
Dahl's autobiography can be looked at as a series of short chapters or vignettes about different times in his early life. The book is presented in chronological order, but one event is not necessarily directly related to the next. Each chapter centers around what could be considered a fairly common theme of childhood, for instance a time of questioning, a deep-seated dislike for a grown-up, a dream of the future, a traumatic event, or being reprimanded for doing something wrong. Students will be asked to pull, or in some cases construct, these themes from each chapter. As students compile a list, they will be asked to participate in informal autobiographical journal writing about times in their lives that center on similar themes. Students will select two to five journal writings to revise as they learn about the writing techniques Dahl uses in characterization. During the writing process students will be exposed to mini-lessons on the various techniques that they observed in Dahl's writing (vivid description, showing details, figurative language, dialogue). In addition to the examples presented in the mentor text, Boy: Tales of Childhood, these techniques will be modeled for students, and they will be provided with opportunities to practice and evaluate the use of each technique in class with the goal of successfully incorporating the techniques into their own autobiographical writing. The focus will be on writing in a way that shows or reveals character.
As students read Dahl, they will also be learning about the genre of autobiography. Students will be asked to consider how an autobiography can be seen as a portrait of a person's life. They will consider the meaning and also the limitations this idea presents in examining a person's life. Students will apply their knowledge of autobiography to Dahl and also to their own personal writings. At the conclusion of the unit, students will prepare several revised autobiographical vignettes focused on a common childhood theme that in some way reveals character. Students will choose one of these vignettes to publish in a class book. Students' writing will demonstrate an understanding of techniques used in the process of writing characterization. As a closing exercise, students will share their writing with their peers and once again be asked to come back to the idea of an autobiography as a portrait. Students will discuss how the pieces of writing their peers chose to share show a picture of who the writer is.
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