Oddrey and Character Analysis with 2nd Grade

Last week, I worked with our 2nd grade teachers on a lesson to help them with character analysis. Yes! Can you believe it? 2nd graders doing character analysis! I took me back to my secondary English days. *Sigh*

So, the teachers were focusing on helping the students understand the difference between character traits (who a character is) and the character’s feelings. Oftentimes, students get confused. For instance, a character may be celebrating a victory, so they FEEL happy. We want the students to understand that the character is good at the skill that brought them the victory which maybe makes the character dedicated to strong willed, but that the character is feeling happy or content.

Easy to see where the confusion come in.

So, we decided that the book Oddrey by Dave Whamond would be a great book to use to for this lesson. So, I worked with the teachers to understand what some of the character traits were that the students would be learning about. I wrote the Oddrey Character Analysis Station Questions . The teachers read the book to the students a couple of times this week, so that the kids would familiar with the book and the character.

Then, the kids came to the library and went around to stations where they answered the questions I made on the activity by looking closely at the pictures from the book and talking with a partner. Oddrey Character Analysis Activity Sheet

The teachers took this activity for a grade, so I also gave each of them an answer key.

The kids really loved the book, and the activity!