1. Taking it Personally

Ask your students to do the following.

Draw the face of one of the characters of the story you are exploring on to an a4 piece of thin card. The face should be as large as possible. Cut the face out and glue a stick onto the back (you can also use a piece of paper folded to form a stick). Brilliant! You've made a mask of your character. Now write what you know about the character onto the back of it. Here are some things that you could write: where they live, who they live with, what they spend most days doing, what they like, what they don't like, what they are good at, and what they are bad at. You are now ready to use the mask in a class game.

One at a time, students stand at the front of the class holding the mask in front of their face. Other students ask questions. The trick is that the student holding the mask must answer the questions in character.

"First Little Pig, how did you feel when the Wolf blew your house down?"
"I was terrified, at the time and just ran for my life. Luckily, half the roof fell down in front of the Wolf and scared him, so I was able to run out the back before he noticed. So, I guess really I was very fortunate."

2. Looking at it Sideways

Ask your students to do the following.

Write the name of each character in the story you are exploring sideways down the page. Use each letter to start a word or phrase that describes the character.

For example: Cinderella
Cute
Interested in princes,
Not happy at home,
Does housework,
Evil step-mother bosses her around,
Rides in a pumpkin coach,
Evil step-sisters take advantage of her,
Likes dancing,
Likes balls,
Afraid of midnight.

3. Feeling it

Ask your students to do the following.

Fold a piece of paper into four. Outline the four rectangles that the folds have made. In the middle of each rectangle draw the face of one of the characters in the story you are exploring. If there are more characters use another piece of paper or simply choose the four main characters. Inside each character's rectangle, write all the emotions that the character felt during the story. In the three little pigs the first pig was excited and nervous (when he was leaving home), happy and hopeful (when he was building his house), scared (when the wolf arrived), terrified (when his house was blown down), relieved (when he was able to hide in his brothers house) and elated when the Wolf was killed.

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