Character Analysis D&D style!

 Never fear, EOCers!  Your daily dose of EOC is just a scroll away, but do check out this fun character activity!

The idea came to me when printing off some character sheets for my daughter's D&D group - this is the perfect platform for dissecting character!  So I started tweaking and realized that while the idea is sound, just modifying the existing D&D character sheet is not going to work for my purposes.  So I started just making one from scratch.  Here are a few partial screen shots - I think it came out pretty good!

So the whole thing is a page front and back, along with a detailed walk-through student instruction sheet.  I plan on having my students roll the die to get the attributes and then finding a character that matches closely (allowing for some tweaks here and there).  I made this for my AP Lit students, but the first practice run-through was on a group of middle schoolers at a Pre-College camp - they loved it!  My objective was to create a platform for character analysis, but the middle schoolers used it to create detailed characters for a creative writing campaign, so I was happy to see that it is quite versatile!

It took way longer to get this sized and laid out than I thought it would take when I first embarked on this idea, but in the end, I think it will become a mainstay in my classes.

Get it here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/XET-Literature-Lairs-Character-Analysis-11913326?st=fb14def15bd606f53d6adaa1318e8e4c 

If you try it out, I would love to hear from you.  Drop a comment here or on the TPT site.  Every bit helps!

Sadly, there's no wisecracking blue genie in this one!

In the book, 1001 Arabian Nights, there is a sultan that hates women and likes to marry one and then have her killed the next night.  After killing many women this way, he finally marries a woman named Scheherazade who tricks him into letting her live by telling him stories each night, but not finishing them.  That way he must let her live to hear the end of the story.

In the movie version, the sultan was betrayed by his first wife and is planning on killing the next, which is Scheherazade.  He has never actually had a wife killed and because she saves him from his madness, he never does.

What was the director's purpose in changing the story in this manner?


a. to create an indifferent tone
b. to focus on the irony of the situation
c. the director probably never read the original story.
d. it makes the sultan a more sympathetic character






Scroll down for the answer.














______________
a. is incorrect.  An indifferent tone means that the director doesn't care one way or the other.  Since he made the change, we can assume he cares.
b. is incorrect.  There is no irony in this situation.  Many students automatically pick the irony answer since it sounds intelligent.  Don't fall for that trick.
c. is incorrect. 
d. is correct.  If the sultan is killing women, it makes it hard to accept him as a guy who deserves to get the woman at the end of the movie.


~

Houston, We Have a Problem

 Read the following very short story:

“Houston, We Have a Problem” by J. Matthew Zoss

I’m sorry, but there’s not enough air in here for everyone. I’ll tell them you were a hero.

From the story, we can assume:

a. their spacecraft must have been hit by a comet
b. they are locked in a bank vault and running out of air
c. one person is going to kill the other person
d. both characters are going to die in a sunken submarine







Scroll down for the answer.








_____________________
a. is incorrect.  From the title you can guess that it involves space travel, but nothing to suggest a comet strike.  This is the best wrong answer.
b. is incorrect.  From the story you can tell that they are running out of air, but nothing to suggest that it is in a bank vault.
c. is correct.  One will kill the other so that he can breath longer.
d. is incorrect.  Nothing to suggest either inference in this answer.  This is the worst answer choice.

1001

 Read this very short story:

“The Moores are having a baby.”

I glanced up from the table, surprised. “They got the okay?”

My husband nodded. “The paperwork came in today, so I heard.” He lowered his eyes in sorrow. “Poor Joanna.”

“She’s only 53,” I breathed.

A bead of sweat dripped down my brow, landing on the cool, concrete floor of the bunker. I tried to remind myself to be thankful for this place, this concrete tomb, but it grew more difficult each day. Perpetuum Technologies, the company that sprung up just in time for the largest nuclear war the world had ever seen, had designed the vault to sustain one thousand people for as long as it took the surface to be inhabitable again.

Exactly one thousand people.

Poor Joanna indeed.

From this story, we can infer:

a. Joanna cannot have children

b. Joanna is very sick

c. Joanna is the first name of Mrs. Moore

d. Joanna is the oldest person in the community

Scroll down for the answer.

________________________________

This question requires two processes to figure out.  The first is to understand that Perpetuum Technologies will only sustain 1000 people.  This means that if a new baby comes in, that will push the number over 1000 - so the solution would be to get rid of one person to make room for the baby.  Why Joanna?  The key to that is in the statement that she is only 53.  Since the characters are focused on her age, we can assume that the person selected to be gotten rid of to make room for the baby must be selected on age.  Therefore, the correct answer is D.

Spookily enough, there is a real world Perpetuum Technologies.

Story taken from: https://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/boo-scared-you?utm_term=.bcyrRk5yEk#.cs7Rr7QmX7

Paranormal Romance...

 Look at this movie poster:

What literary term is being used to grab attention?

a. alliteration
b. pun
c. verbal irony
d. satire


















Scroll down for the answer.










__________________
a. is incorrect.  There is nothing alliterative in the title.  You can make a case for "Some Sagas..." as alliteration, but it is not being used to grab the viewer's attention.
b. is correct - play on the word "suck"
c. is incorrect - there is nobody talking, so we really cannot have verbal irony.
d. is incorrect - this movie is a parody, but parodies and satires often get confused.  Satires often poke fun in order to bring awareness to a social issue.

I Hate Scary Movies

Read the following passage:

We were watching this horror movie and saw the killer climb into the house through an open window, pick up a huge knife laying on the kitchen counter, and go into the closet of the little kids' room.  Later, the babysitter and her boyfriend (who is NOT supposed to be over) send the kids to bed.  Right as they are about to do things that should not be done by unwed teenagers, the little kids start crying that there is a monster in the closet.  The babysitter is frustrated and goes up to their room to make them go to sleep.  She says, there is no such thing as monsters.  To prove it, she went to the closet and opened the door.  Of course the killer leaped out and stabbed her to death.  It was very scary.

What is the purpose of showing the killer enter the closet before the killings?

a. to provide specific details
b. to create enriching imagery
c. to create suspense
d. to develop the rising action





Scroll down for the answer.








_______________________________
c. is the correct answer.  This is called dramatic irony (we know something the characters do not know).  Since we know he is there, the suspense builds up waiting for the killer to attack.

~

Did You Ever Think as a Hearse Goes by...

Read the passage from All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque:

"I open my eyes- my fingers grasp a sleeve, an arm. A wounded man? I yell at him- no answer- a dead man. My hand gropes farther, splinters of wood- now I remember again that we are lying in the graveyard....I crawl still farther under the coffin, it shall protect me; though Death himself lies in it."

What literary device is used to show the speaker's determination?

a. alliteration
b. irony
c. metaphor
d. personification






Scroll down for the answer.

_____________________

The correct answer is d.  A key to noticing personification is when the thing personified (in this case Death) is written with a capital letter.  Here  the speaker won't even allow that to stop him.  
However, the best wrong answer is B, since there is some irony in a dead body being used to keep the speaker alive.  

The EOC will often use answer choices that appear in the passage, but do not directly answer the question.

Thanks, Ashley from Ms. Stamey's class, for a thoroughly gruesome story.  Now I'm going to have nightmares!