Discover the Depths of Character with Sophie Scott Goes South!

CHARACTER, featuring Alison Lester’s captivating text Sophie Scott Goes South.

This resource, created for NSW DET Component B, is designed to help students explore characters as reflections of both fictional personas and real experiences, enhancing their understanding of what makes a character dynamic, relatable, and memorable.

In this 2-week unit, students dive into character study through a blend of verbal and visual elements, observing how actions, words, and thoughts shape a character’s personality.

Supported by structured activities, students will develop their ability to describe and engage with characters, using noun groups and expressive language to bring characters to life.

Why This Resource Stands Out This unit offers flexibility to adapt to individual classroom needs while maintaining a focus on core concepts of character and context. Featuring an editable PowerPoint, a Google Slides presentation, and printable PDFs, it’s crafted for ease of use, depth of learning, and engagement.

Learning Intentions:

• Explore both real and imagined characters across multiple text forms.
• Extend knowledge through strategies that support comprehension and expression.
• Understand context as it shapes and reveals character.

Success Criteria Highlights:

• Make informed predictions about a text and identify its key features.
• Use descriptive language, including Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary, to write and describe characters vividly.
• Create structured, informative paragraphs, mastering exclamations and tense consistency.
• Develop navigation skills to locate information, stay focused, and organize thoughts with concept maps.
• Celebrate peer contributions and respond thoughtfully to classmates' work.
• This unit provides students with the tools to approach character analysis thoughtfully and expressively. They’ll learn to celebrate their peers’ creativity, stay on topic, and produce informative character-centred pages.

With Sophie Scott Goes South as a guide, this unit turns character exploration into a dynamic, interactive experience.

Attribution is given to: © State of New South Wales (Department of Education), 2023.