Character Silhouette

When we start talking about human impact on the environment, I often show students the original Lorax video on Youtube and then ask them to write a response. The story and corresponding video are engaging, but I feel the boredom streaming out of their ears when I ask them to write about the main message and to make connections to what’s happening in our modern society. Perhaps one of the reasons why my students hate writing this response is that they don’t really know what to write about. I don’t give them an official time to brainstorm beforehand-- I just ask them to go right into to writing.

This is why I really liked the character silhouette activity we did this summer. With this activity, students can work in groups (so multiple people can contribute to the writing or drawing) and really think about this character and how he/she fits into the overall narrative. This will in turn help them in writing a response to the story/video, as they will have had time to discuss with their classmates more about a particular aspect of the story.