Teaching Point of View to Middle & High School Students

An understanding of point of view as well as perspective is key to interpreting any fiction or nonfiction text. Students need to be able to understand an author or character's view point as well as its impact on the information or narrative presented. I detailed the many ways I introduce and reinforce point of view in this previous blog post and you can find even more ideas below.

Point of View Rewrite Activity for the Review Win

I've written about the activities and texts I use to teach point of view in the past, but wanted to also share a quick activity I used this past year to review point of view.

For sixth graders, point of view isn't a new concept, but students definitely need reinforcement of the types of point of view and the differences between them. I introduce second person and third person objective, but I focus on first person, third person omniscient, and third person limited. Last year, we started working with point of view before the winter holidays, so I wanted to do an activity that would ease students back into learning while also acknowledging their time away from school. 

Teaching Literary Elements: Point of View

In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch tells Scout that, "You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." As I teach point of view, I impress upon my students that to really understand a story, they must just as carefully consider the point of view.

Whether you are teaching this as a new concept for your students, diving in deeper, or just reviewing the basics, you'll find activities and resources below that will benefit all levels of students.

Creative Writing 101: Point of View Retellings

You would never want to insult your students by having "little kid" books in your classroom library, even if you have students reading at that level. But is it ever okay to bring children's stories into the classroom?

My blogger friend Lauralee of The Language Arts Classroom wrote a post about using literary terms like characterization, mood, and point of view from children's books to teach high school students.

It got me thinking about how I use The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith to teach the literary term unreliable narrator. And that got me thinking about a fun creative writing assignment, having students retell a classic fairy tale or other well known story from an alternate point of view.

I use The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka for this lesson, but there are so many other choices: The Frog Prince Continued also by Jon Scieszka, Goldilocks and The Three Bears by James Marshall, and these collections of The Other Side of the Story. I haven't read any of the stories from The Other Side of the Story collections, but each story can also be purchased individually like Really, Rapunzel Needed a Haircut! and Seriously, Cinderella Is SO Annoying! I even learned that there is a term for this type of story, a fractured fairy tale.

I am partial to the Jon Scieszka books because they always have great illustrations. I scan the book and create a PowerPoint of the pages so that my students can read along with me. If you are having trouble getting your hands on one of these books, many of them can also be found on YouTube. I also saw some great Pinterest boards of other titles. There are so many possibilities.

Which story you choose to use as a mentor text is up to you. I recommend not sharing too many as not to limit students' choices when they choose a story to rewrite. After analyzing the differences in The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, I offer some suggestions of topics (including superheroes for those boys that think fairy tales are girly) and planning questions to help think about how students' stories would differ from the originals.

A few excerpts of my students' work:

Batman & Robin

After re-capturing the Riddler, Batman and Robin went back to the batcave. While in the batcave Robin was thinking over how his role as a superhero all started. 

(flashback) It was a cool summer evening the young adolescent was was defiling a strange automobile. Upon being discovered in his act of criminal activity the Batman appeared from the shadows. Young Robin looked in somewhat shock and surprised. He apologized to him but Batman was still unpleased with his actions. But none the less, the boy was ready to take off if things got hairy...

Cinderella:

I know you’ve heard about Cinderella and the glass slipper but I’m here to tell you the real story. I am Lady Tremaine, Cinderella’s “evil” step mother as they say. But, in reality Cinderella is a cruel person. I've tried my hardest to raise Cinderella but she’s been out of control every sense her dad's death. To start off, she stole money and jewelry...

Allowing students to retell a well-know children's story from an alternative perspective gives those students who struggle with getting started a starting point as well as a format to guide their writing, while still hitting all of the Common Core narrative writing standards as well as working on characterization and point of view.

For this and other creative writing activities, check out this engaging, common core aligned resource.

Tweet Sheets: A Creative Lesson on Characterization & Point of View

Let me first say that at the time I created this lesson, I did not have a Twitter account. I didn't even really know how Twitter worked. But I did know that my high school students liked Twitter. Some of them loved Twitter. Some of them would write their Twitter handles on their classwork, on their folders, on my white board when they thought I wasn't looking, everywhere.

With that in mind as I was planning activities for my literature circles at the beginning of the year, I thought why not make reading more fun and exciting by connecting it to something my students already think is fun and exciting. My students had a choice of five novels, all on the theme of coming of age, at the start of the year. The novel they selected determined which literature circle they were in. One day a week was dedicated to these literature circles. Students had fifteen minutes to read silently and independently before working with their group on an activity for the rest of the period.

The first group activity was "tweet sheets." To introduce the concept, I used the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I asked students what they knew about Goldilocks (she had curly hair, she wasn't afraid of anything or had "no rap" as my students would say, broke into people's houses, etc.). From our list of ideas, I asked students to come up with a Twitter handle for Goldilocks. What would she call herself? My favorite possibility was @CurlyHairDon'tCare. My intro was short and sweet. The kids got it and got excited.

In their groups, students then listed six characters from their own novel and described each character using evidence from the text. Using these descriptions, they created possible Twitter handles for the characters.

On the reverse side, students listed three events that occurred so far in their novel. Finally, students selected a few of the characters and their Twitter handles from the front side to use to respond to the events. Students were directed to use first person as they wrote their tweets and think about how the character would think and feel about the events in question.

At the end of class, students were given a packet of tweet sheets to complete as they continued reading their selected novel. This was their "homework" as they read, to be collected upon completion of reading. I asked that they complete one tweet per chapter or section of their novel to make sure their tweets were spread out. You may ask students to do a tweet for every certain number of pages read. The last page can be copied as many times as necessary.

This activity could just as easily be used with a short story or nonfiction text. Be prepared to read some hilarious things, but also some sad and serious ones (depending on your choice of texts). If you try out this activity with your class, I would love to hear how it goes!

You can find the resources for this activity here. If you are looking for more literature circle activity ideas, check out my posts on literary postcards and character silhouettes.

Literary Postcards: Writing From A Character's Point of View

Looking for a way to reinforce the ideas of character and point of view? Literary postcards are a great activity for any grade level.

I teach 9th grade English (don't be misled by some of the sample drawings and writing below) and my students completed this activity at the end of reading a novel in their literary circles.

Students had a choice of five coming of age novels (Sunrise Over Fallujah, Split, The Skin I’m In, Standing Against The Wind, and The Fortune of Carmen Navarro) and were grouped based on their choice. While all of the books deal with growing up and maturing, several also death with issues of abuse and bullying which are so important for teenagers to read about and discuss.