Creating a Character as a Writing Exercise

Abstract

During more than thirty years of teaching German, I always taught the equivalent of a second-year university language course. Most of the were actually first-year students, having taken 2-4 years of high-school German; the remainder were at a similar level, with either one year of Beginners' German at university, or with some exposure to the language through family or time spent in a German-speaking country. In all cases, we assumed an active vocabulary of about 600 words and phrases, plus an acquaintance with most of German grammar. Our goal was to increase the active vocabulary to approximately 2000 words and phrases and review the entirety of German grammar. We employed all four skills in the process: reading, writing, speaking, and aural comprehension. Writing practice soon became a particular challenge for me, since the tendency in the late '60s and early '70s was to assign essay topics such as kanadische Verfassung, Abtreibung: Fur und Wider, or Sollte die Todesstrafe wieder eingefiihrt werden? Students were rarely happy about such assignments. Many were simply not interested in the problems, and fewer still had the appropriate specialized vocabulary; thus I was constantly looking for new ideas. As it happened, I came across a book in 1975: A Practical Guide to the Teaching of German, by Rivers, Dell'Orto, and Dell'Orto. I found it very useful in general. However one suggestion in particular caught my attention. In chapter 9, the authors suggest that students invent a family and keep a copy of all the data: number of children and their names, ages, and interests, cousins, aunts, and uncles, where they live, what they do for a living and what they enjoy doing in their leisure, their friends, neighbors, and pets, some of their well-remembered joys and misfortunes, and their hopes and plans for the future.... (276). This suggestion struck me as having possibilities, since it might interest the students, and it could involve more basic vocabulary. I tried it out on my 1975-76 class, and it was such a success that I continued to use it every year thereafter. In all, my created 22 families, or rather, after the first two years, characters, with or without families. After two years of experimentation, I settled on a standard procedure. Early in the fall, I would announce the project, which was inevitably greeted by initial puzzlement on the part of the students, followed by suspicion, and then-as the possibilities dawned-by considerable glee and merriment. I followed a set pattern of alternation over the years, specifying whether the character for the current year-always a resident of a German-speaking country-would be male or female, and over or under 30 years of age. After that, I asked for 3-4 suggestions from the for a family name, and then they voted. In the same fashion, we determined the first name, exact age, place of residence, how the character earned a living, his or her height and weight, hair and eye color, marital status, parents, children, and siblings. The process (always done entirely auf Deutsch) usually required a few i utes out of 4-6 class sessions, and by the end of it, the were quite enthusiastic. They would then go on to write a series of, not essays, but stories, with the created character as the protagonist. I assigned the story topic and the minimum length. The first was always (Name) stellt sich vor, 75 words minimum. Over the course of the year, the assi nments became longer and more complex: 'Was machen deine Eltern?', Jan Walter: ein Tag an der Uni, Fritz hat eine neue Freundin, Frau