Creative Lesson Plan for Static/Dynamic Characters

A lesson that I would consider relatively interesting would be the lesson I conducted on static and dynamic characters. The character in focus was Ah Boh from “Lottery”, which is one of the short stories in Catherine Lim’s Little Ironies. I first gave the students a basic definition of the terms “static character” and “dynamic character”. After that, I showed them the changes that 3 characters went through and asked them to decide if those changes allowed the characters to be counted as dynamic. The changes I chose were: 1. Cinderella from rags to ball gown, 2. Professor McGonagall from human to cat, and 3. Professor Snape from a supporter of Voldemort to a traitor to Voldemort. The purpose of this activity was to guide them to notice that most characters do undergo some form of change in the course of a story, and then to help them appreciate that there is a difference between mere physical change and a deeper psychological change.

After discussing the types of changes in these characters, we then went on to discuss whether Ah Boh showed any significant changes in her thinking and belief system. The students filled up a worksheet in which they were guided to analyse how Ah Boh was like at specific parts of the story. The purpose of breaking down the story into various parts is so that students are able to chart the different events in Ah Boh’s life and analyse whether she showed any development through those events. At the end of the lesson, the students answered a reflection question on their worksheet, which asks them whether they sympathise with Ah Boh when she cries and begs for forgiveness at the end of the story. Students were encouraged to keep in mind what they had discovered about whether Ah Boh matures as a character when answering that question.