Grade 6 · Reading · Lesson 10

Analyze character change and motivation

Characters in stories do not stay the same from beginning to end. They face conflict, make choices, and experience consequences that reshape who they are. When you analyze character change, you ask: how is this person different at the end from who they were at the start — and what caused that shift? When you analyze motivation, you ask: why does this character act the way they do? Motivation is the engine beneath behavior; change is what happens when that engine meets resistance.

What this lesson teaches

1Identify how a character’s actions reveal their inner motivation
2Trace the key turning point that causes a character to change
3Describe a character’s arc from their beginning state to their end state
4Explain what drives character change using evidence from the text

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