This lesson effectively combines collaborative work, deep analysis of a character, and integration of technology. Working in small groups, students analyze a character from a piece of fiction and create a web site to represent their interpretation of that character. Using novels from whole class readings, literature circles, or book clubs, students select a character to study and then complete written and visual responses. In developing their web site, students use web-authoring software or a word-processing program to create their characters' homepages. The content for the homepage should reflect a careful analysis of the character and text at a level appropriate for middle school students. Suggestions for evaluation of the projects, including a self-assessment, are provided. This activity may be completed as a homework project or used as an extension following a novel study. (author/ncl)

While designed as a lesson for middle school students, this activity's acceptance and use at a high school level will depend upon the selection of literature and the expectation of performance. This site provides an interesting, hands-on way for students to study literature and practice character analysis. Students develop a web page based on an analysis of a character from a novel. They must use knowledge of the character that they glean from the text to identify and define the character, and then project ideas of what that character might include in a web page, based on his/her characteristics. This is appropriate for any career cluster as it is standard for companies to design web pages which mirror their own character; it is therefore useful for every high school student to learn how to develop a web page. Using literature to learn a technical skill like this makes the lesson very valuable both to academics and career-technical disciplines.