Character and Setting Freebie!

We’ve been working a lot on identifying the character and setting of a story.  We have sang about it, written about it, anchor-charted-it-up, acted it out, read about, drew pictures about it, and I think at one time I may just have rapped about it to my kids.  That being said, today was time for one of three assessments for our report cards on our ability to identify the characters and setting of a story.  

Since this is the first year for my grade level to move toward standards-based report cards, we are creating many of the assessments for our students.  It was really difficult to come up with an assessment for those first few weeks of school when so many of my inclusion students are not yet reading independently.  

This was the result of my assessment.  I wrote three short passages packed with details about the setting and the character(s).  We read the passages together slowly, one at a time.  While I read, my students had to underline the key words within the passages that gave them clues and information about the setting and characters.  (We had practiced underlining and identifying key words and details within our small groups.) 

At first I was worried that the assessment was not challenging enough since I was reading the stories to them.  However, as I gave it today, I noticed that it was a GREAT exercise and evaluation of how well they were able to identify character and setting.  They not only had to recognize the key details within the text but they had to sort out what information to draw in each box – separating the information about the setting from the characters.  Each passage contained information about not only the where but the when of the setting.  The Common Core calls for students to look very closely at text, and I was pleased with how this exercise accomplished that for our first assessment. 🙂

Below is a copy of this assessment for you if you would like to use it with your kiddos. 🙂 I included two different versions in the download.  The first version contains boxes for the assessment points and a spot to grade the assessment.  The second version does not contain any assessment information so that you can use this little activity as a mini-lesson or as a learning activity for small group work. 🙂

I hope you had a great Tuesday!  I am off to grab a late dinner with a good friend. 🙂  Have a wonderful night! 🙂