Life+Size+Character+Project

=__The Life-Size Character Project__= //*this project is taken directly from Ellen Greer Harris' Website, "Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture In the Classroom", a site which provides resources and ideas for teaching the novel; I have simply paraphrased and slightly changed the directions for my own personal use for this assignment.//

The purpose of this project is to get students to really connect and understand Harriet Beecher Stowe's characters. They will be able to recognize their positive and negative qualities, analyze their characters' words, and even detect stereotypical imagery in them.

Harris states, " This lesson is intended to guide students though a close reading of the novel in order to help them use concrete evidence to interpret Stowe's characters for themselves. As students come to an understanding of Stowe's construction of her characters, they will become better able to consider the ways in which Stowe both challenged and upheld the beliefs of her culture."

The lesson will be introduced after the reading of the first chapter so that students get an idea of how the novel feels before starting. It will be a unit long project, with a final product due at the end. The final product is a life-size cutout of the character each group is assigned, filled with words and quotes that characterize that character. One day of class time will be allotted to hang up the cutouts and for each group to look at every other groups'. Class discussion will follow.

Students will sign up via a chart on the board during the first class the project is introduced. Names of characters will be displayed on the chart with up to 3 slots per character (for smaller or larger classes, this number can be adjusted). Once the slots are filled, that group is closed. In order to be fair, students will be called up according to alphabetical order and who has done all of their homeworks for the unit so far. The character list is as follows (the * names indicate characters that must have a group)

Uncle Tom* Eva* Eliza Harris* George Harris* Miss Ophelia* Augustine St. Clair* Topsy* Simon Legree* Mr. Shelby Mrs. Shelby Aunt Chloe George Shelby Marie St. Clair Mammy Cassy Sambo Quimbo Rachel Halliday

Because all of the characters are not in all of the chapters, I will keep track of when these characters are introduced or are no longer part of the story line so that those groups that it effects are not required to show a character log that class/week.

Students will then be using a character log, shown below, to take notes on their character every week that they are included in the assigned text. Students should be doing this portion of the project individually, and character logs will be checked for completion. It will be important to keep up with the reading because these notes will be vital and the only tools they can use in creating their final projects, which will be peer reviewed. Students will be expected to become experts on their characters so that at the end of the unit they can share their expertise with their fellow classmates.

Some days this assignment can be done in class (for example after or during an oral reading of a chapter) or for homework. Students should record concrete, specific details and examples in the character logs.


 * Towards the very end of the unit, students will be divided up into their groups to begin work on their Life-sized characters. They will be given large paper and will follow these steps:**


 * 1) Compare notes with group members and come up with a decent sized list of terms, descriptions, and quotes that accurately describe your character.
 * 2) Trace a group member's outline on the butcher paper for your life-sized character and cut this out.
 * 3) Fill up the empty space inside the cutout character with your decided list in whatever creative way you wish.
 * 4) The finished products will be hung up around the classroom.


 * Discussion and Sharing:**

Students will have an opportunity to travel around the room and observe all the groups' life-size characters. We will then convene back together and discuss the project, what the students liked and disliked about it, and anything they may have noticed about the characters. We will also discuss these questions:


 * Which characters have similar characteristics? Do these similarities occur along racial lines? gender lines? religious lines? (In other words, what do the following groups have in common: female characters? male characters? black characters? white characters? Christian characters? non-Christian characters?)
 * Compare Stowe's black characters to Stowe's white characters. Based on her characters, in what ways did Stowe believe the two races were different? What differences did Stowe imagine between black characters with darker skin and black characters with lighter skin?
 * Compare Stowe's female characters to Stowe's male characters. Based on her characters, in what ways did Stowe believe women and men were different?


 * The literary term //foil// refers to characters in a novel that are opposites. Which characters in //Uncle Tom's Cabin// might be foils for each other? What might Stowe be trying to say through her use of these paired characters?


 * Use this sheet to collect information about your assigned character. You'll need several copies of this sheet, or you may copy the categories below onto notebook paper. Every time you come to a piece of evidence about your character, record in the appropriate category the page number and a short phrase describing the evidence you've found. **