In order to successfully comprehend a story, one must succeed in character analysis. Analysis occurs when we break down a topic or idea. When analyzing, one needs to investigate the smaller parts of something to see what’s important or to gather meaning. Thus, character analysis is breaking down the qualities, actions, and motivations of the characters in order to better understand them and their role in the story.
One way to analyze the characters is to compare and contrast them. Compare & Contrast acts as a practical and easy-to-use introduction to higher-order thinking. Compare & Contrast improves comprehension by highlighting important details, making abstract ideas more concrete, and reducing the confusion between related concepts.
An English activity named ‘Compare and contrast’ was conducted for the students of class IX. The idea behind the activity was to focus on higher order thinking (HOTS) skills along with improving critical analysis in the students.
Children had to compare the lives of the given pair of characters from their NCERT books and find out the similarities and differences between them on the basis of their childhood, problems faced in their career, their personal qualities and their achievements.
Overall, it was a thought-provoking and engrossing activity for the students.