Formative Assessment: 'Pride and Prejudice' Relationships and Character Chart Using Stickies

 Early in our reading of Pride and Prejudice in Humane Letters 11 we used this activity to both help students solidify their understanding of the characters and their relationships, but also as a means of formative assessment—checking for understanding. (Total time: about 15 minutes)

As a formative assessment, this activity provided opportunity to observe individual responses on all characters, as well as to observe the paired discussions. The full group discussion gave us opportunities to defend positions and for cold calling. Students could volunteer, as well, of course. 

1.       Students first individually filled in the graphic organizer below. Then, they paired up and were assigned one character.

 2.       They were given two yellow sticky notes to identify character traits and two blue sticky notes to describe the relationship between that character and another. When they agreed on the best descriptions of each they wrote them on the stickies and put them on the board.

 3.       After they had placed their stickies on the board, the class discussed the words used and any changes or additions, etc. We filled in as a group certain areas that the small groups hadn’t been assigned.