Character Growth and Change

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

How many times have you said, “When I grow up, I’ll never...”?

• What things will never change when you grow up? How will you change?
  
• Do all characters change in a story? How do they change?

As we grow up, we find ourselves making decisions about which things we will keep and which things we will leave behind. We will go through many changes -- inside and out.   

In literature, people can be considered dynamic characters or static characters. Some characters are static: they don’t change in a literary work. Some characters are dynamic: they change a great deal.

Watch the video about Dynamic vs. Static Character:   

Think about a story you know, like Goldilocks. In the story, Goldilocks learns that she shouldn’t enter a strange house because you never know who lives there -- it may even be a family of bears!

She learns a valuable lesson from being frightened by the bears and changes because of her experience. She becomes more cautious and wise as a result. She changes over the course of the story to be more cautious.

People can change in many ways during a literary work. They can have physical changes and emotional changes. You will change, too.

Read the following short story. As you do, focus on the characters, especially the girl's parents: The Girl Who Was Born with only Two Arms and Two Legs from Stuart Stories.

• Were her parents static or dynamic? How do you know?
• Was Quarta static or dynamic? How do you know?

The parents were dynamic because they changed how they felt about Quarta. Quarta was dynamic because she changed how she thought about the students in the school.

Choose two characters to write about from the story. Complete the Static Dynamic Character Analysis found in the Downloadable Resources in the right-hand sidebar.