Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol

Name: ___________________________________ Date: __________________

STAVE I: Methods of Characterization - S.T.E.A.L. Acronym Anchor Chart Ms. Brown Grade 7

S.T.E.A.L. Characterization
Anchor chart
OVERVIEW: The process by which authors create and construct characters is known as CHARACTERIZATION. Authors
use FIVE METHODS of CHARACTERIZATION to develop their characters. Through the identification and analysis of
these five methods in a story, we, as readers, can learn different things about characters.

Method of During-Reading Questions to Ask Yourself to

Characterization Identify the Method In-Context
CHARACTERIZATION:

The literary device

through which an
author constructs,
S
describes, and
develops a fictional
character. T
E
A
L
As readers, characterization helps us:

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 Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol

How does Dickens’s use all five (5) methods of characterization to introduce us to

Ebenezer Scrooge in the first Stave?

Method of S.T.E.A.L.
Text Evidence (Direct Quotes) Inferred Character Trait
about Ebenezer Scrooge Characterization (What do we learn about Scrooge?)
(How do we learn about Scrooge?)

“The cold within him froze his old

features, nipped his pointed shriveled
1.
his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his
eyes red, his thin lips blue…” (p. 2-3).

‘“Every idiot who goes about with

‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should
2. be boiled with his own pudding and
buried with a stake of holly through
his heart. He should!” (p. 6).

“Let it also be borne in mind that

Scrooge had not bestowed one
3. thought on Marley since his last
mention of his seven-years-dead
partner that afternoon” (p. 14).

“Nobody ever stopped him in the

street to say, with gladsome looks,
4. ‘My dear Scrooge, how are you?’…No
children asked him what it was
o’clock” (p. 3).

“Scrooge took his melancholy dinner

in his usual melancholy tavern; and
having read all the newspaper, and
5.
beguiled the rest of the evening with
his banker’s book, went home to bed”
(p. 13).

Why is it especially important for us to have a strong

understanding of Scrooge’s character right away?

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