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Characters from History
When you are writing a play or acting in a play about a time in the past
– a history – you must do research
to find out about what it was like to live then. If you are creating a
character about a real person from the past, you will have to do research
to find out about that person. For any character you will need to have
enough information to create a story about his or her family, friends
and enemies, likes and dislikes, ambitions and needs.
Here are some questions we answered for our characters in a play about
the American Revolution. We researched the answers for where we lived
and what daily life was like. We used our imaginations to answer the questions about what our characters were like.
Where do I live? When is this?
- Do I live in a city, a town, the country?
- What year is it?
- Where did my family come from before they settled
here? Why did they come and settle here?
- Who else lives here?
- What is the climate like? Is it hot, cold,
dry, rainy and/or snowy?
- What is this place like? What kind of buildings
are here?
- What are the roads like?
- What is the land like? If it is a farm what
crops do we grow?
What is my daily life like?
- What is my house like?
- What do we wear?
- What kind of food do we eat?
- Who is in my family?
- What kind of chores do we have to do around
the house?
- What do we do at home in the evening?
- What kind of games do we play?
- Who goes to school? What are the schools like?
- What kind of work does my father or do I do?
What is that like? Are there apprenticeships?
- What kind of transportation do we have?
What am I like?
- How old am I?
- What do I think about the members of my family?
Who is my favorite?
- What is my favorite thing to do?
- Who are my favorite people? Why?
- Whom don’t I like? Why?
- What do I want? Why?
- Am I happy or sad? Why?
After we answered most of these questions we drew
our character and wrote down his or her thoughts around the drawing.
Here is our example of characters from a scene about the American Revolution. You should come up with your own questions for the period you are studying.
These questions are for people who lived during
the American Revolution. You should come up with your own questions for
the period you are studying.
Here is a figure model you can use to help you draw your character. Remember
your character should be dressed in clothing that would have been worn
at the time.
 Print
Model
  
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