Scaffolding Characterisation and Analysing Fiction for Students Who Need Support (WA, SCSA-Aligned)

Analysing fiction asks students to hold several ideas at once: what a character does, how the author constructs them, and why that construction matters. For students who need support, that cognitive load is exactly where analysis falls apart. In Western Australian classrooms working within the Western Australian Curriculum, the fix is not to lower expectations but to chunk the thinking and give students the language to do each step. Here is how I scaffold characterisation so every Year 9 to Year 12 learner can produce real analysis.

Chunk the analytical task into visible steps

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA) expects students to examine how language features and text structures shape meaning. That is a multi-step process, so make the steps explicit. I break characterisation into four moves and teach one at a time before combining them, drawing on the sequence in Characterisation and Analysing Fiction.

1. Notice: find one moment where the character is revealed.
2. Name: identify the technique (dialogue, action, description, others' reactions).
3. Effect: say what impression it creates.
4. Why: connect it to a theme or the author's purpose.

Sentence stems that carry the load

Stems remove the blank-page panic and let students focus on ideas. Display these and expect students to graduate off them over the term.

• "In this scene, the author reveals ___ through ___."
• "The word/phrase ___ suggests that the character is ___."
• "This makes the reader feel ___ towards them."
• "This matters because it connects to the idea of ___."

A supported student can then write: "In this scene, the author reveals the father's guilt through his short, clipped replies. The phrase 'he looked away' suggests he cannot face his son, which makes the reader feel sympathy despite his mistakes." That is genuine analysis, built from a stem.

Worked examples before independent work

Never send a struggling student straight to independent analysis. Model a full example under the visualiser, thinking aloud as you move through the four steps. Then do one together, where you write and students supply the ideas. Only then release them to a partly-completed version with the technique already named, so they practise just the effect and why. This gradual release is the backbone of accessible teaching and reflects the SCSA principle of building toward independent, sustained response - the kind seniors will need for the WACE (ATAR & General courses).

Differentiate the text, not just the task

Chunk the reading too. Give supported students a short, high-yield extract rather than a whole chapter, with two or three words pre-glossed in the margin. Colour-code the passage: one highlighter for what the character says, another for what they do. This visual scaffold makes technique-spotting concrete. As students grow, the same skills transfer to persuasive and argumentative texts, so pairing this unit with Writing a Comment and Argumentative Essay lets them reuse the notice-name-effect-why frame in a new context.

Stretch the scaffold toward analysis of voice

Once characterisation is secure, extend confident students to how speakers construct a persona in real texts. Analysing how a politician builds authority in Analysing Political Speeches - Rhetoric and Stylistic Devices uses the same analytical moves on non-fiction, which deepens transfer. Throughout, keep celebrating the process: in Western Australia's diverse classrooms, making the invisible steps of analysis visible is the surest way to lift every learner, and it supports the Australian Curriculum's literacy general capability directly.

Related reading from the Teacher Hub

• Standards-Aligned Assessment for Analysing a Painting (WA, SCSA-Aligned)
• Standards-Aligned Assessment for Dystopia: Orwell's 1984 (WA, SCSA-Aligned)
• Standards-Aligned Assessment for Job Application Skills (WA, SCSA-Aligned)