Sonder: Teaching the Power of

Characterization and the

Intersection of Stories
Alecia Hinston
Red Cedar Writing Project 2016
When writing a novel a writer should create
living people; people not characters. A character
is a caricature.
- Ernest Hemingway

Contentions:
Powerful stories are founded on authentic characters.
Teaching fiction writing is essentially teaching students how to consider
others stories, and how the characters experiences intersect with their own or
the overall human experience.
Teaching students to write from and consider multiple characters perspectives
models and instills empathy.
Listening to people, whether in fiction or in real life, allows us to intersect
with anothers story, which is a rewarding and beautiful experience.
Demonstration Timeline:
1. In Writers Notebook, describe somebody. This somebody should be someone
you saw or interacted with only in passing. For example, the woman standing
in line in front of you at the grocery story last week, or your waiter at dinner
yesterday. How would you describe this person?
(3 minutes)
2. Read Jacqueline Woodsons Poem Describe Somebody. Discuss
What words and/or phrases does the narrator use to describe
characters in the classroom?
What do you notice about the change in characterization as the poem
progresses?

3. Read excerpts from

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith. Discuss
characterization of
Mama
i.
What do we learn about Mama (either stated directly or
inferred) from this excerpt? Cite specific examples.
ii.
Characterization of Mama (p. 12)
Mama was twenty-nine. She had black hair and brown eyes and
was quick with her hands. She had a nice shape, too. She worked
as a janitress and kept three tenement houses clean. Who
would ever believe that Mama scrubbed floors to make a living
for the four of them? She was so pretty and slight and vivid and
always bubbling over with intensity and fun. Even though her
hands were red and cracked from the sodaed water, they were
beautifully shaped with lovely, curved, oval nails. Everyone said it
was a pity that a slight pretty woman like Katie Nolan had to go
out scrubbing floors. But what else could she do considering the
husband she had, they said. They admitted that, no matter which
way you looked at it, Johnny Nolan was a handsome loveable
fellow far superior to any man on the block. But he
was
a drunk.
Thats what they said and it was true.
Francie Nolan
i.
How is Francie described in this excerpt? How does this example
of characterization differ from the previous examples?
ii.

Characterization of Francie (p. 72-73)

And the child, Francie Nolan, was of all the Rommelys and all the
Nolans. She had the violent weaknesses and passion for beauty
of the shanty Nolans. She was a mosaic of her grandmother
Rommelys mysticism, her tale-telling, her great belief in
everything and her compassion for the weak ones. She had a lot
of her grandfather Rommelys cruel will. She had some of her
Aunt Evys talent for mimicking, some of Ruthie Nolans
possessiveness. She had Aunt Sissys love for life and her love for
children. She had Johnnys sentimentality without his good looks.
She had all of Katies soft ways and only half of the invisible
steel of Katie. She was made up of all these good and these bad
things.

She was made up of more, too. She was the books she read in
the library. She was the flower in the brown bowl. Part of her life
was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. She was the
bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly.
She was Katies secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame
of her father staggering home drunk.
She was all of these things and of somethimg more that did not
come from the Rommelys nor the Nolans, the reading, the
observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had
been born into her and her only -- the something different from
anyone else in the two families. It was what God or whatever is
His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life -- the one
different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on
the face of the earth alike.
4. Watch Sonder: The Realization That Everyone Has a Story and TEDTalk
Everyone Around You Has A Story The World Needs to Hear. After viewing,
discuss
How do these two videos change the way you view others around you?
How do the main ideas in these videos translate to fiction writing,
specifically characterization?
5. In the next
25 minutes
, explore one of the HONY social media pages (or the
book!). Choose one person (and accompanying blurb). Continue that persons
story based on the blurb in the first section of your writers notebook. Focus
on using strong, vivid characterization. You could discuss what happened to
lead up to this point, what was happening the day Brandon Stanton
photographed this person, or what happened next in that persons story. You
could write in first- or third- person perspective!
http://www.humansofnewyork.com/
https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork/
https://www.instagram.com/humansofny/
6. Find a partner. Then, each of you will share about the person you chose and
how you created their story based off of the HONY blurb and photo.
Then, based on Anne Lamotts advice, place those two characters together -either suck in an elevator, standing in line at Starbucks, stuck inside a cafe

during a severe thunderstorm, sitting on a bench eating lunch in Central

Park...the possibilities are endless! ;) How would their stories intersect? How
would each character interact with the other? How would they respond?
Together, begin writing a story about that interaction.
7. Chalk Talk
Silently write your responses to the questions on the sheets of paper.
Well discuss responses after everyone has had a chance to write and
respond.
Bibliography
Chadwick, Jocelyn A. "Making Characters Come Alive: Using Characters for
Identification and Engagement."
The English Journal
102.1 (2012): 34-39.
NCTE.org
. Web.
Isay, Dave. "Everyone Around You Has a Story the World Needs to Hear."
TED
.
Web.
Lamott, Anne.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
. New York:
Panethon, 1994. Print.
Obscuresorrows. "Sonder: The Realization That Everyone Has A Story."
YouTube
.
YouTube, 26 Oct. 2014. Web.
Ritchhart, Ron, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison.
Making Thinking Visible: How
to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners
.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2011. Print.
Smith, Betty.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
. New York: Harper, 1947. Print.
Woodson, Jacqueline. Describe Somebody.
Pearson Common Core Literature
8
. Hoboken, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2015. 353 - 354. Print.
Additional Resources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_GVgbykf8A
6ish minute video
discussing characterization (especially focusing on direct vs. indirect)
http://www.npr.org/2015/10/24/451184837/in-10-000-snaps-of-the-shutter-a-pho
tographic-census-of-a-city
NPR interviewing Brandon Stanton (creator of
Humans Of New York)
Other mentor texts featuring great examples of characterization:
Raymie Nightingale
by Kate DiCamillo
Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout
Wonder
by R.J. Palacio
Out of My Mind
by Sharon M. Draper