Characterization Assignment

I've been working with my grade 5 class on developing their stories using a story organizer. Many of them stick to it well and some have a hard time writing in only the most important parts. After reading their last writing prompt, I decided that helping them develop stronger characters would help improve their plot and help them connect to their work. I found a few resources online and created a project. The parts are as follows: Part 1: Brainstorm character traits - we opened a new wordle document and came up with as many traits as we could. I prompted them with the question: "What is your character? Is he kind or selfish? Polite or rude? These are traits." As I typed them into the wordle, they created their own in their duotangs. Part 2: Looking for a character - we all brought in magazines and newspapers and cut out a character we think we could write about. Some drew pictures of a character they had in their imagination. Along with this hunt-and-find activity, they filled in a chart to give some information about their character's appearance, behaviour, interests and what other people think about their character. Part 3: Writing about my character - this part of the activity uses dialogue to show how the character they've created interacts with another character in the story. There is no plot, no problem and no solution - yet! They are just talking. The point is to get them thinking about who their character is. What would he or she do? How does he or she talk? Walk? Dress? React to positive or negative experiences? Part 4: Creating a quilt square - in university we had to create a quilt square about our teaching style (our philosophy). We pieced together 8" square pieces of card stock, each one representing a student in our class, and hung them on a bulletin board. I thought I would apply this technique here. Students will create a quilt square, but this time, with everything we need to know about their character! They will be beautiful and we will hang them where they will be admired!