Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the below bulleted outlines. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Flat characters are one-dimensional, very cut-and-dried, and do not change over the course of a narrative. Dynamic characters are complex, full of contradictions, and change over the course of the narrative.

• Identify three characters from Day of Tears and state whether they are dynamic or flat characters. (topic sentence)
• In the body of your essay, analyze your chosen characters, explaining what makes them dynamic or flat. Use examples from the text to support your analysis.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explain whether you think it is realistic or unrealistic for authors to include some characters who don’t change and some who do.

2. Dialogue can help reveal characters’ emotional and mental states. How effectively was this done in the novel?