Dylan Stacey

24 March 2015
C&T 4133
Reading Mini-lesson
Identifying Character Traits 3rd Grade

Objective
s

-- Students will be able to use clues in a text in order to determine

and infer character traits that are not explicitly stated in the story.
-- Students will acquire some new vocabulary to use in describing
characters.

Connectio
n

Teach

Okay, readers! Yesterday, we started our work with character traitswe

read the folktale Good Compadre, Bad Compadre and generated a big
list of words we could use to describe our main characters. Thumbs up
if this sounds familiar!
Were going to continue our work with character traits. Often times, a
text doesnt clearly state the traits of our characters; we have to
determine them ourselves! The best writers dont just list a number of
traits (because that would make for such a boring story!) The best
writers give us clues and hints to show us the type of person our
characters are, so we have to be the best readers to infer them! These
clues are usually a characters actions or what a character says. Watch
as I read the beginning of Cleopatra Finds Her Voice and infer some of
her character traits.
(Read beginning of text aloud to the class as they follow along.) Im
going to pause here and look at this section again. Once back at home,
Cleopatra insisted on learning the Egyptian language She studied
hard and soon learned to speak Egyptian. But she didnt stop there.
She also learned Hebrew, Aramaic, Persian, Latin, and some African
dialects. She loved learning and excelled in math and science, too. Im
noticing so much in this part of the text! I think theres a lot here that
describes Cleopatra. I notice that the text says Cleopatra loved
learning. Whats a word I can think of that would describe someone
who loves to learn? Perhaps, curious! I think Cleopatra was a curious
person because she wanted to learn so much. I also can infer she was
studious! Studious is a great word we can use to describe someone who
studies and learns a lot. Do you guys think Cleopatra studied a lot? Yes,
I think she must have studied a lot to learn as much as she did.
These are great character traits! I think I can come up with even more. I
notice that once Cleopatra learned to speak Egyptian, she didnt stop

there. She then learned five more languages! This definitely shows us
she was curious and studious, but what else? She didnt stop there
Can we think of a word to describe someone who doesnt stop trying? I
know we came across it yesterday (Persistent / determined /
hardworking) Yes, persistent! Persistent is a great word for us to hold
onto. We could also use determined, another great word. We could use
both of these to describe someone who continues to try despite any
obstacles or challenges they come across.
Active
Engagem
ent

Link

So I want you all to finish this page with your neighbor next to you and
see if you can infer any other character traits we could use to describe
Cleopatra. Ill give you a couple minutes and then we can share with
the group go!
(Should come up with words like intelligent, kind, generous, caring,
thoughtful, respectful, compassionate.)
So do we see how many character traits we can come up with if we just
read closely and use the clues the author gives us in the text? We came
up with some great traits just now by looking closely at Cleopatras
actions in this story. What I want you to do now is go back to your
seats, pull out your independent fiction book and read with this lesson
in mind. I want you to use a characters actions and/or speech to give
you clues in order to determine a character trait. I know you can do it
so Ill pass out Post-Its for you to jot down your ideas and mark the
page. We can share with the group at the end. Lets get to it!

Reflection
I student teach in an ICT class where we typically split up the class into three
groups based on reading levels. This lesson was conducted with the highest reading
group, 11 students. I thought because it is a smaller group I would be able to fit in
more content for the Teach portion of the mini-lesson. After doing the lesson
though, I think I may have tried to do a little too much as the mini-lesson
component went longer than ten minutes. Though, the after-lunch energy and
restlessness also certainly contributed to this as well.
Something I was particularly pleased about was sharing new vocabulary with
my students. The class has a lot of ELL students and almost everyone is bilingual.
Ive noticed that they often have the idea, but just dont have the words to express
it. For example, a couple students shared that Cleopatra did not give up and they
seemed excited when I shared with them vocabulary they can use that describes
exactly that. Some students were also excited to expand on the word nice to kind to
caring to generous to compassionate!

I struggled somewhat with linking this lesson to their independent reading.

Obviously, any of the texts the students in my group were reading will come across
instances in which they identify and infer character traits. But I dont think everyone
read a particularly effective part in their books after the lesson for them to note and
share with the group. How can this be improved? Ideally, the whole group will see
this teaching point immediately linked with their independent reading, but I realize
this is just ideally. I think the group share to wrap up the period actually helped with
this a bit in that it allowed some studentsparticularly those who did not encounter
an effective passage in their bookto see instances in other books in which the
reader was able to infer a characters trait like we did in the lesson.