The Curriculum Through ICT Program

Ideas Bank

Character Webs

THE TASK

Students created character webs using concept mapping software. Character webs (also known as literary sociograms) are visual maps of the relationships between the main characters in a story.

Students engaged with a range of narrative texts appropriate to their developmental level. They completed different reading activities to develop their understandings about the characters in a story, their motives, development and the relationship between characters. The culminating activity was the creation of character webs by individual students.

In a character web, each character is assigned a separate box in the concept map. Lines with arrows at one end show the relationship of one character to another and should be accompanied by a brief text description.

ICT ENRICHMENT

• ICT makes it possible to develop and manipulate the character web over time. This allows the students to engage more deeply with the text. For example, the size of each character box can denote their relative importance. As a narrative develops these may need to be changed.
• A digital version of the character web is a clean, tidy product for display, portfolios and as a record of learning.

SUGGESTED RESOURCES

• Example character web (pdf)
• Literary Sociograms (web page)
• Literacy Through Literature (book) Johnson, T.D. & Louis D.R., 1987

ASSESSMENT

• The Reading outcome was monitored over-the-shoulder through discussion with the students as they created the character web and re-read the text.
• The product was used as evidence towards demonstration of the outcome.

LEARNING AREA OUTCOMES

English
Reading

Learning activity developed by David Katz.