Character analysis tasks for Act 1 of An Inspector Calls
This carefully scaffolded lesson resource includes tasks for GCSE English Literature students to complete to develop their understanding of two An Inspector Calls characters.
The worksheet focuses on the presentation of Sheila Birling and Arthur Birling at the start of the play in Act 1 of J.B Priestley's iconic play.
There are two paragraph planning tasks, with sentence starters and word banks to develop students' confidence when writing analytically and to develop their vocabulary. The Arthur Birling task includes a range of quotations for students to choose from and explore, before planning their own PEE paragraph response to the following question:
How does Priestley present Mr Birling to the audience in Act 1?
The task on the presentation of Sheila includes a ranking activity, group writing activity and a smaller selection of quotations to consider. Student also plan a response to the following question:
How does Priestley present Sheila to the audience in Act 1?
Signposting phrases from the resource for students:
Sheila is presented as …
This conveys the impression that…
The audience would see Sheila as…
The word “…” has connotations of…
Shelia is… towards…
Sheila’s language is…
This suggests/implies/shows…
Priestley wants the audience to …
Priestley is trying to reveal that…
This reflects society at the time as/because…
An example word bank from the resource:
character
playwright
audience
social class
unequal
J.B. Priestley
capitalist/capitalism
socialist/socialism
immature
slang
Sheila
Inspector
responsibility
