Character Traits

These are words we might use when discussing characters in literature, or the character traits of people in our lives.

Words to describe a person's characters are rarely stated in rich literature, as the author "shows" rather than "tells" the trait. Providing a bank of trait words, and building on it with each story you read is a powerful way to scaffold language the task of literary analysis for students with limited vocabulary, and to build vocabulary in the context of learning. Have students state an inference about a character using one of the words, then justify with text evidence.

For fiction writing, have students think of a word and then write specific actions and reactions to show that character trait without using the actual word.