In this Voices Inside Schools essay, a veteran teacher shares her reflections on a classroom unit entitled "How Language Reveals Character." The goal of the unit is to help adolescents read and write critically through an exploration of literary characters' language. Beginning by drawing on adolescents' fascination with one another, Metzger first asks students to analyze the language of their peers as an entry point to thinking about how language and character may be connected. The unit then moves on to ask students to transfer their analytic skills to the world of fiction and how language reveals character in literary texts. Metzger focuses on life inside her classroom, how the unit is taught, how students respond, and how teachers can expand on the concepts of language and character through additional reading and writing activities.
Esther: Subverting the “Capable Wife”
