Throughout the month of December, I worked with the 3rd grade teachers at my school on deepening their students fiction reading skills through a unit of study on characters (based on the CCSS and the work of the TCRWP). One of the greatest challenges that we consistently face as elementary teachers is helping students to build a sophisticated vocabulary that allows them to deepen their ability to infer about characters. Students are much too quick to infer that a character is "nice" or "mean." Or, if they do attempt to use more sophisticated vocabulary, they often use it inaccurately because their level of understanding of the word's meaning is often just that it has a positive or negative connotation, without truly knowing what it means to be, for example, "supportive," or "ambitious." The Common Core Standards call for students to use "domain-specific words and phrases" so we must find innovative ways to do so.

This year, I worked with the teachers on a new way to help students not only build their vocabulary for describing characters, but also to deepen their understanding of what these new words really mean. After briefly introducing several sophisticated character traits by defining them with a more basic level synonym, we modeled how to delve more deeply into one particular trait by considering what a character with that trait might say, think, and do.


Then we assigned each small group of 4 to 5 students one character trait to explore deeply by discussing, acting out, and jotting down what a character with that trait might say, think, or do. After working with their group for about 10 minutes, each group was responsible for teaching their character trait to the rest of the class. By the end of this activity, students were not only exposed to many new sophisticated character traits, but they also began developing a much stronger understanding of what each trait truly means. This lead to more sophisiticated thinking, jotting, and debating about the traits that best fit the characters in their own independent reading books across subsequent weeks.  Check out some student samples from this activity below, and feel free to comment on how you help your students to develop domain-specific vocabulary across subject areas!