Children’s Book Week

KS2 Speaking and

Listening/Reading
What makes a great character?
Activity
Character Chat Show

Aims
• Explore their understanding of what makes a great character
• Develop role-play/drama skills

Whole class
Put the phase ‘Think of a well-known character from a story
book’ on the whiteboard as students come into the room. When
they are settled, ask them to write this character down on a piece
of paper/card privately for themselves. Tell students that they are
now going to play the ‘Who am I?’ game.
Ask one student to come out to the front and to reveal their
character to the class without showing it to you or saying
anything. Then model the types of yes/no questions that can be
asked (e.g. Am I a girl? Am I human? Do I have super powers?) Put
a limit on the number of questions that can be asked (somewhere
between 10 and 20) and then guess the name of the character.
You could then ask students to come out to the front of the
class to have a go themselves or the class could do it in pairs by
sticking their character’s name on their partner’s forehead. When
finished, you could put all the chosen characters up on the wall to
reflect on later throughout the lesson.

Development
Tell students that they are going to take part in a TV chat show
with some of the greatest characters from story books ever
written. To begin with, ask students to work in groups of four and
to choose a character from one of the books they know (ensure
that each group has a different character). In their groups,
students should then create a brainstorm/ mind-map of their
character with regards to what they know about them and what,
in their opinion, makes them great.

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Children’s Book Week

When they have spent sufficient time on this, tell them that one person
from the group is going to take on the ‘role’ of that character and will be
a guest on the chat show. Check that students understand what ‘being
in role’ means as opposed to a dramatic performance. Their group
should now help them prepare to answer the key question, ‘What makes
you the greatest character from a story book?’.
As this is happening, you may want to select two students to be the
interviewers for the chat show. They could get together and start
preparing some of the questions that they might ask their guests. If
possible, you could even ask a couple of students to act as camera
people and film the show and some students could work on a visual for
the chat show on the whiteboard.
When ready, all remaining students will be in the audience. They
should be encouraged to listen carefully in preparation for when
the interviewers take questions ‘from the floor’. The audience could
eventually vote for who they think has proven themselves to be the
greatest character.

Plenary
Students could get into pairs and reflect on the characters mentioned
in the lesson and what has been said about them (including those
written down in the starter activity). They should choose their top five
characters from story books with a supporting summary/statement
as to why they are so great. Take some feedback from the group and
compare choices. Open up the discussion further if necessary and if
there is time.

KS2 objectives met

Reading
Maintaining positive attitudes to reading and understanding of what
they read by:
• Reading and discussing a wide range of fiction, poetry, plays, non-
fiction and reference books or textbooks
• Recommending books that they have read to their peers, giving
reasons for their choices
• Making comparisons within and across books
• Drawing inferences such as inferring characters’ feelings, thoughts
and motives from their actions, and justifying inferences with
evidence

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 Children’s Book Week

Speaking and listening

• Participating in discussions, presentations, performances, role
play, improvisations and debates
• Gaining, maintaining and monitoring the interest of the listener
• Considering and evaluating different viewpoints, attending to
and building on the contributions of others

Resources
• Book Trust’s Best Book Guide, available from
booktrust.org.uk/cbw
• Cameras
• IWB

Cross curricular links

Drama, IT, Art and Design
Expand the TV Chat Show idea by creating a character podcast
series with the children, recording radio interviews with a variety of
fictional characters and posting them online. Share with parents via
a secure wiki and ask them to leave feedback!
Create promotional materials for the TV show or podcast – posters,
flyers and GIFs, using art and IT expertise – whether that’s painting
or PhotoShop! Display them around the school and in areas where
families and visitors will see them.

Additional needs
Help children to make collages that depict a favourite character –
either as a figure, choosing different body parts from a variety of
media, or making a collage about what the character might like –
favourite foods, music and so on.

Whole school
Use this session as the start of a whole school focus on great
fictional characters. You could ask children to present their
favourite fictional character at one assembly a month over the
school year, and integrate a series of character-based activities
into the whole school – for instance, articles in the school
newsletter/magazine/blog about teachers’ and pupils’ favourites,
parents’ favourites etc; Have a whole school fancy dress day as
book characters for World Book Day (or any other day of the year!);
display children’s art around the school, depicting how they think
their favourite characters might look.
Illustration © Quentin Blake

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