| NSW Department of Education Literacy and Numeracy Teaching Strategies - Reading

Character perspective
Stage 4
Learning focus
Students will learn to identify character feelings, perspective and motivation in narrative texts.

Syllabus outcome
The following teaching and learning strategies will assist in covering elements of the following outcomes:
 EN4-1A: Responds to and composes texts for understanding, interpretation, critical analysis,
imaginative expression and pleasure
 EN4-2A: Effectively uses a widening range of processes, skills, strategies and knowledge for
responding to and composing texts in different media and technologies
 EN4-3B: Uses and describes language forms, features and structures of texts appropriate to a range
of purposes, audiences and contexts

Year 7 NAPLAN item descriptors

 identifies a character's motivations in a narrative
 identifies a character's perspective in a narrative
 identifies a character's role in an information text
 identifies how a character is portrayed in a narrative
 identifies how a character is portrayed in an imaginative text
 interprets a character's feelings in a narrative
 interprets a character's motivations in a text

Literacy Learning Progression guide

Understanding Texts (UnT10-Un11)
Key: C=comprehension P=process V=vocabulary

UnT9
 selects reading/viewing pathways appropriate to reading purpose (scans text for key phrase or close
reading for learning (P)

UnT10
 synthesises relevant information from a variety of complex texts (C)
 selects reading/viewing pathways appropriate to reading purpose (scans text for key phrase or close
reading for learning (P)

education.nsw.gov.au
UnT11
 derives a generalisation from abstract ideas in texts (C)
 identifies relevant and irrelevant information in texts (P)

Resources
 Range of persuasive, informative and imaginative texts to refer to throughout the learning. These can
be short texts, texts already explored or unfamiliar examples
 Quality picture book. Suggestions include: John Heffernan’s ‘The Island´, Margaret Wild’s ‘Fox’ or
Margaret Wild’ and Rob Brooks’ The Dream of the Last Thylacine.
 Cartoon graffiti ‘The Island’ John Heffernan (Appendix 1)
 ‘A Pocketful of Rye’ Teacher guide and text excerpt (Appendix 2)
 Graphic organiser for feelings, motivations and perspective (Appendix 3)
 Text examples to analyse (Appendix 4)

Background information
Perspective
A way of regarding situations, facts and texts.

Point of View
The particular perspective brought by a composer, responder or character within a text to the text or to
matters within the text. Narrative point of view refers to the ways a narrator may be related to the story. The
narrator, for example, might take the role of first or third person, omniscient or restricted in knowledge of
events, reliable or unreliable in interpretation of what happens.

Modality
Aspects of language that suggest a particular perspective on events, a speaker or writer's assessment of
possibility, probability, obligation, frequency and conditionality. Modality forms a continuum from high
modality (for example obliged to, always, must) to low modality (for example might, could, perhaps, rarely).
Modality is expressed linguistically in choices for modal verbs (for example can, may, must, should), modal
adverbs (for example possibly, probably, certainly, perhaps), modal nouns (for example possibility,
probability, certainty) and modal adjectives (for example likely, possible, certain).
(NSW K-10 English Syllabus Glossary, 2012 NESA)

Where to next?
 Characterisation
 Author perspective and bias
 Inference

2 Reading: character perspective Stage 4

Teaching strategies
Task 1: Voice
1. Review understanding of narrative voice and character voice. Discuss understanding of first second,
and third person voice as ways of describing points of view (second person voice is rarely used in
narrative). First person is the ‘I/we’ perspective, second person is the ‘you’ perspective and third
person is the ‘he/she/it/they’ perspective.
 First person examples include: “I prefer to leave early next time.” and “The shoe is mine!”
 Second person examples include: “Rebecca angers you...” and “The shoe is yours.”
 Third person examples include: “...he prefers to leave early” and “The shoe was his.”
Students use Appendix 1 to compare how first and third person is presented.
2. Create a class anchor chart (poster to refer to throughout learning) for students to help distinguish
between the three voices. This can be done as a three-way Venn diagram, colour-coding three
columns or having three separate posters with headings such as: voice, key features, tips to
determine voice and how it is different from the other two, Students might also add example
sentences and text examples to illustrate first, second or third person.
3. Students read excerpts from a range of texts currently being explored in current unit of learning.
Students discuss with partner: “Whose voice can be identified in the text: first person/third person
narrator and/or character?”
4. Students read a range of persuasive, imaginative and informative texts in stations around the
classroom. Students vote using a tally chart and evidence from the text on which narrative voice the
text is written in. They share and reflect with whole class to determine answer: this text is written in
first person as it is the point of view of the narrator and uses the pronouns “I” and “we”.

Task 2: Analysing character in picture books

1. Review understanding of feelings, perspective and motivation using a graphic organiser such as a
Venn diagram, mind map, or KWL chart. Discuss ways illustrators might indicate these through
images.
2. Freeze Frames: Students are allocated a picture book to analyse. In groups, students select one
character and discuss what feelings the character has, what motivation they have for their actions
and the perspective they bring to the text. Students create three freeze frames through a physical
dramatic pose sequence or writing key ideas for each frame to indicate the character’s feelings,
motivation and perspective using props. Students lead discussion with class about the character and
their interpretation using evidence to justify ideas.
3. Teacher reads a picture book linked to current unit of learning with students, drawing attention to
reading path and elements of visual literacy including salient image, vectors, demands and offer,
framing, colour, lines and modality (see visual literacy). Discuss purpose, audience and message of
the text. Ask students to discuss which characters they made a connection with or perhaps could
empathise with their situation.
4. Hot Seat: Students demonstrate understanding of a character determining dialogue and vocabulary
a selected character might use. A student then acts as that character with the class interviewing to
determine perspective, motivation and feelings.

© NSW Department of Education, Nov-24

Task 3: Analysing a visual stimulus
1. The following activities use the visual excerpt from ‘The Island’ by John Heffernan (Appendix 1),
2. Brainstorm: Before they see the image, Have students brainstorm vocabulary linked to the word
‘captivity’ and display ideas, adding to the word bank as new terms are introduced.
3. Using the illustration, students discuss what might be happening, predict what may happen next,
and key characters in the text.
4. Cartoon Graffiti: students add thought bubbles to the characters in the visual stimulus to indicate
feelings, motivation and perspective.
5. Conscience Alley: the class divides into two lines facing each other with space for one student to
walk down the centre. When the student walks down the alley, the two opposing views convince the
student one at a time with their perspective. Once complete, the student decides which group has
convinced them the most.
Alternate Task: Use the same process with a different image from the text explored.

Task 4: Analysing texts

1. Students independently read “A Pocketful of Rye’ (Appendix 2) text excerpt. Teacher choice as to
model first, or go through responses, or to work in small teams. Students highlight words and
phrases that indicate character traits of Inspector Neele.
2. Teacher models using Appendix 3 to determine Inspector Neele’s feelings, perspective and
motivation.
3. Students read a range of texts (see Appendix 4) and complete graphic organiser to determine
feelings, motivation and perspective of characters (Appendix 3). Discuss findings and the importance
of creating deep and rich characters that readers can connect with.

4 Reading: character perspective Stage 4

Appendix 1
Student copy: cartoon graffiti ‘The Island’ John Heffernan
“So they caught it and dragged it off to the pool.”

© NSW Department of Education, Nov-24

Appendix 2
Teacher guide: A pocketful of Rye
A Pocketful of Rye, Agatha Christie Harper Publishing, 1953

Text Teacher guide

Inspector Neele sat in Mr Fortescue’s sanctum behind Mr Define Terms

Fortescue’s vast sycamore desk. One of his underlings with a
Inspector Neele
notebook sat unobtrusively against the wall near the door.
 Has “underlings” – position of
Inspector Neele had a smart soldierly appearance with crisp brown authority.
hair growing back from a rather low forehead. When he uttered the  “…smart soldierly”, “…crisp”
phrase ‘just a matter of routine’ those addressed were wont to think – regimented, past in war?
spitefully: ‘And routine is about all you’re capable of!’ They would  “…matter of routine” –
have been quite wrong. Behind his unimaginative thinking, and one follows the book.
of his methods of investigation was to propound to himself fantastic  “…routine is about all you’re
theories of guilt which he applied to such persons as he was capable of” - Not overly well-
interrogating at the time. liked?
 “…unimaginative” -
Miss Griffith, whom he had once picked out with an unerring eye as
 “…succinct account – not
being the most suitable person to give him a succinct account of the here to waste time
events which had led to his being seated where he was, had just left  Matter of fact “dispose” of a
the room having given him an admirable resume of the morning’s person
happenings. Inspector Neele propounded to himself three separate  Conveniently situated at his
highly coloured reasons why the faithful doyenne of the typists’ room left hand – why convenient?
should have poisoned her employer’s mid-morning cup of tea, and
rejected them as unlikely. Feelings:
He classified Miss Griffith as (a) Not the type of a poisoner, (b) Not in  authority
love with her employer, (c) No pronounced mental instability, (d) Not  power
a woman who cherished grudges. That really seemed to dispose
Motivation:
Miss Griffith except as a source of accurate information.
 solve the crime
Inspector Neele glanced at the telephone. He was expecting a call
 maintain his reputation
from St Jude’s Hospital at any moment now.
 follow rules
It was possible, of course, that Mr Fortescue’ sudden illness was due  efficient
to natural causes, but Dr Isaacs of Bethnal Green had not thought so  prove himself
and Sir Edwin Sandeman of Harley Street had not thought so.
Perspective:
Inspector Neele pressed a buzzer conveniently situated at his left
 Crimes need to be solved
hand and demanded that Mr Fortescue’s personal secretary should
every day, this is just another
be sent to him.
crime that may well be
Miss Grosvenor had recovered a little of her poise, but not much. natural causes. An efficient
She came in apprehensively, with nothing like the swanlike glide approach to get to the results
about her motions, and said at once defensively: quickly is what is needed.
‘I didn’t do it!’  Views on women – discuss

6 Reading: character perspective Stage 4

Student copy: A pocketful of Rye
A Pocketful of Rye, Agatha Christie Harper Publishing, 1953
Text Tasks
1. Highlight words and phrases
Inspector Neele sat in Mr Fortescue’s sanctum behind Mr
that indicate character traits
Fortescue’s vast sycamore desk. One of his underlings with a of Inspector Neele.
notebook sat unobtrusively against the wall near the door.
2. Highlight any terms you are
Inspector Neele had a smart soldierly appearance with crisp brown unfamiliar with. Use the
hair growing back from a rather low forehead. When he uttered the context and write a word
phrase ‘just a matter of routine’ those addressed were wont to think above to build meaning.
spitefully: ‘And routine is about all you’re capable of!’ They would What might be some ideas for:
have been quite wrong. Behind his unimaginative thinking, and one
Feelings:
of his methods of investigation was to propound to himself fantastic
theories of guilt which he applied to such persons as he was
interrogating at the time.
Miss Griffith, whom he had once picked out with an unerring eye as
being the most suitable person to give him a succinct account of the
events which had led to his being seated where he was, had just left
the room having given him an admirable resume of the morning’s Motivation:
happenings. Inspector Neele propounded to himself three separate
highly coloured reasons why the faithful doyenne of the typists’ room
should have poisoned her employer’s mid-morning cup of tea, and
rejected them as unlikely.
He classified Miss Griffith as (a) Not the type of a poisoner, (b) Not in
love with her employer, (c) No pronounced mental instability, (d) Not
a woman who cherished grudges. That really seemed to dispose Perspective:
Miss Griffith except as a source of accurate information.
Inspector Neele glanced at the telephone. He was expecting a call
from St Jude’s Hospital at any moment now.
It was possible, of course, that Mr Fortescue’ sudden illness was due
to natural causes, but Dr Isaacs of Bethnal Green had not thought so
and Sir Edwin Sandeman of Harley Street had not thought so.
Inspector Neele pressed a buzzer conveniently situated at his left
hand and demanded that Mr Fortescue’s personal secretary should
be sent to him.
Miss Grosvenor had recovered a little of her poise, but not much.
She came in apprehensively, with nothing like the swanlike glide
about her motions, and said at once defensively:
‘I didn’t do it!’

© NSW Department of Education, Nov-24

Appendix 3
Analysing texts for feelings, motivation and perspective

MOTIVATION - why are

FEELINGS - they doing this?

PERSPECTIVE - How do they see the

situation?

8 Reading: character perspective Stage 4

Appendix 4
Example texts
Roald Dahl ‘Boy’ (1984)
‘First Day’, pp. 86-88

On the first day of my first term I set out by taxi in the afternoon with my mother to catch the paddle-steamer
from Cardiff Docks to Weston-super-Mare. Every piece of clothing I wore was brand new and had my name
in it. I wore black shoes, grey woollen stockings with blue turnovers, grey flannel shorts, a grey shirt, a red
tie, a grey flannel blazer with the blue school crest on the breast pocket and a grey school cap with the
same crest just above the peak. Into the taxi that was taking us to the docks went my brand new trunk and
my brand new tuck-box, and both had R. DAHL painted on them in black.

A tuck-box is a small pinewood trunk which is very strongly made, and no boy has ever gone as a boarder to
any English Prep School without one. It is his own secret store-house, as secret as a lady’s handbag, and
there is an unwritten law that no boy, no teacher, not even the Headmaster himself has the right to pry into
the contents of your tuck-box. The owner has the key in his pocket and that is where it stays. At St Peter’s,
the tuck-boxes were ranged shoulder to shoulder all around the four walls of the changing-room and your
own tuck-box stood directly below the peg on which you hung your games clothes. A tuck-box, as the name
implies, is a box in which to store your tuck. At Prep School in those days, a parcel of tuck was sent once a
week by anxious mothers to their ravenous little sons, and an average tuck-box would probably contain, at
almost any time, half a home-made currant cake, a packet of squashed fly biscuits, a couple of oranges, an
apple, a banana, a pot of strawberry jam or Marmite, a bar of chocolate, a bag of Liquorice Allsorts and a tin
of Bassett’s lemonade powder. An English school in those days was purely a money-making business
owned and operated by the Headmaster. It suited him, therefore, to give the boys as little food as possible
himself and to encourage the parents in various cunning ways to feed their offspring by parcel-post from
home.

‘By all means, my dear Mrs Dahl, do send your boy some little treats now and again,’ he would say.
‘Perhaps a few oranges and apples once a week’ – fruit was very expensive – ‘and a nice currant cake, a
large currant cake perhaps because small boys have large appetites do they not, ha-ha-ha …Yes, yes, as
often as you like. More than once a week if you wish … Of course he’ll be getting plenty of good food here,
the best there is, but it never tastes quite the same as home cooking, does it? I’m sure you wouldn’t want
him to be the only one who doesn’t get a lovely parcel from home each week.’

© NSW Department of Education, Nov-24

Text extracts
‘Wonder’ by R.J Palacio (2012)
Part One

Ordinary

I know I’m not an ordinary ten-year-old kid. I mean, sure, I do ordinary things. I eat ice cream. I ride my bike.
I play ball. I have an Xbox. Stuff like that makes me ordinary. I guess. And I feel ordinary. Inside. But I know
ordinary kids don’t make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. I know ordinary kids don’t
get stared at wherever they go.

If I found a magic lamp and I could have one wish, I would wish that I had a normal face that no one ever
noticed at all. I would wish that I could walk down the street without people seeing me and then doing that
look-away thing. Here’s what I think: the only reason I’m not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way.
But I’m kind of used to how I look by now. I know how to pretend

I don’t see the faces people make. We’ve all gotten pretty good at that sort of thing: me, Mom and Dad, Via.
Actually, I take that back: Via’s not so good at it. She can get really annoyed when people do something
rude. Like, for instance, one time in the playground some older kids made some noises. I don’t even know
what the noises were exactly because I didn’t hear them myself, but Via heard and she just started yelling at
the kids. That’s the way she is. I’m not that way.

Via doesn’t see me as ordinary. She says she does, but if I were ordinary, she wouldn’t feel like she needs
to protect me as much. And Mom and Dad don’t see me as ordinary, either. They see me as extraordinary. I
think the only person in the world who realizes how ordinary I am is me.

My name is August, by the way. I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably
worse.

10 Reading: character perspective Stage 4

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte, Penguin Books, First Published in 1847
Chapter One

THERE was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless
shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs Reed, when there was no company, dined early)
the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor
exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it; I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons; dreadful to me was the coming
home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the
nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of y physical inferiority to Eliza, John and Georgiana Reed.

The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mamma in the drawing-room: she lay
reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying)
looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group, saying, ‘She regretted to be under
the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover her own
observation that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a
more attractive and sprightly manner – something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were- she really must
exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy little children.

‘What does Bessie say I have done?’ I asked.

‘Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her
elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.’

A small breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase; I soon
possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the
window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain
nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.

© NSW Department of Education, Nov-24

The Potato Factory
Bryce Courtney, Penguin Books (1995)
Chapter 1

Ikey Solomon was so entirely a Londoner that he was a human part of the great metropolis, a jigsawed brick
that fitted into no other place. He was mixed into that mould mortar, an ingredient in the slime and smutch of
its rat-infested dockside hovels and verminous netherkens. He was a part of its smogged countenance and
the dark, cold mannerisms of the ancient city itself. He was contained within the clinging mud and the evil-
smelling putrilage. Ikey was as natural a part of the chaffering, quarrelling humanity who lived in the
rookeries amount the slaughterhouses, cesspools and tanneries as anyone born in the square mile known
to be the heartbeat of London Town.

Ikey was completely insensitive to his surroundings, his nose not affronted by the miasma which hung like a
thin, dirty cloud at the level of the rooftops. This effluvian smog rose from the open sewers, known as the
Venice of drains, which carried think soup of human excrement into the Thames. It missed with the fumes
produced by the fat boilers, fell mongers, glue renderers, tripe scrapers and dog skinners, to mention but a
few of the stench-makers, to make London’s atmosphere the foulest-smelling place for the congregation of
humans on earth.

Ikey Solomon was the worst kind of villain, through in respectable company and in the magistrate’s courts
and assizes he passed himself off as a small-time jeweller, a maker of wedding rigs and paste and garnet
brooches for what was at that time described as the respectable poor. But the poor, in those areas of misery
after Waterloo, had trouble enough scraping together the means to bring a plate of boiled potatoes or
toasted herrings to the table. If Ikey had depended for his livelihood on their desire for knick-knackery, his
family would have been poorly served indeed.

In reality, he was a fence, a most notorious receiver of stolen goods, one know to every skilled thief and
member of the dangerous classes of London. In Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham young pickpockets,
footpads, snakesmen and the like referred to him in awed and reverent tones as the Prince of Fences.

Ikey Solomon was not a man to love, there was too much the natural cockroach about him, a creature to be
found only in the dark and dirty corners of lie.

12 Reading: character perspective Stage 4