Virginia SOL 6.RL.1.D
The Standard
Explain how static and dynamic characters impact the plot.
Virginia Standards of Learning for English · Key Ideas and Plot Details
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students decide whether a character changes in a meaningful way or stays mostly the same. They connect the character’s traits, choices, and changes to specific plot events and outcomes.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students use details from different points in the story to show whether a character changes. They explain how the character’s choices, growth, or fixed traits cause events or shape the ending.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think static means boring or unimportant, and dynamic means active or exciting. They may label any mood shift as character change or retell events without explaining cause and effect.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Identify one static or dynamic character from the text. Cite one detail and explain how the character’s traits or changes affect a plot event.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Place four index cards along a story timeline, then record a character’s traits, choices, and changes at each major event.
Write: How would the ending change if the main character never changed, and which plot events support your answer?
Give pairs plot-event cards to sort by character change or fixed trait, then have them defend each placement with text evidence.
Choose a character from a familiar film or show and explain how that character’s change, or refusal to change, shapes the ending.
Free download
Printable 6.RL.1.D Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 6.RL.1.D, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.
Download the worksheetKeep exploring
Related Standards
- 8.RL.1.C
Justify the decisions and actions of dynamic versus static characters using dialogue or specific events from the text.
- 5.RL.1.C
Explain how events from the plot cause the character(s) to change or evolve and how the development of character(s) or settings impact the plot.
- 3.RL.2.A
Discuss how an author uses characters and settings to advance the plot.
- 7.RL.1.C
Explain how static and dynamic characters and the roles of protagonist and antagonist influence plot events.
Turn this exact standard into a lesson
Grade, subject, topic, and the complete standard are prefilled. Create one free, no account needed.