Lesson 9 — Activity 3: Developing a Character Sketch

When authors create their characters or when we write or talk about the people we know, we can organize our ideas about our characters into a character sketch. A character sketch is a picture we create of our character using words.

Read the following character sketch. After you have finished reading, you will see a completed character sketch for "Gram." You will then complete a character sketch of your own.

Jimmy

Jimmy is 70. He has white hair and wears glasses with the first set of frames he ever got: big black thick ones. Although he can't do very much, other than sitting in the chair in front of the TV, he does remember what his life used to be like. He wasn't always this way.

When his kids were younger, he loved to play with them. He has grand kids now, but he's too old and grouchy to handle their incessant talking, whining and yelling. But he does remember a time when he used to spend a whole night outside in the middle of winter making and perfecting a toboggan hill for his kids to slide on the next day. He does remember driving 80 kilometers one way to get Susy after her Chev broke down, and doing that more than once. He does remember making snow toffee on Christmas Eve with the older grand kids. He does remember being young, once upon a time.

By Carey Klassen

Used with permission.