Fourth grade students can use elements of characterization to suggest how a character is feeling.
Authors use several elements of characterization to illustrate how a character feels. Writing about the character’s actions, words and interactions with others will help readers understand the character’s emotions. Fourth graders must be able to infer how a character feels from these clues, according to the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
Cut out pictures of people from magazines, catalogs or old books. Paste them onto different sizes, colors and shapes of card stock and pass them out to students. Have students write about how that person is feeling, and then have each student explain why. Take one of the characters and apply different experiences and ask how the character is feeling now. For instance, for a picture of a soccer player from a sports magazine, say, “This is Bob. He just missed a shot that would have won the championship for the team. How does he feel? What will he do? What will he say to his teammates?" Use several characters and scenarios to explore different feelings.
Have each student create two different characters and describe them on index cards. They should include a brief bio of the person along with character traits. For instance, “Alan Argus is the oldest of four brothers. His mom has been sick, and he has been taking care of a lot of things at home while she recovers. Lately, his grades have been slipping and he has been acting mean to his classmates.” Then collect the cards, shuffle them, and deal two of the cards to each student. Have the students create a dialog between the two characters that reveals their feelings and suggests why they are feeling that way.
McCarson, Debbie. "Fun Writing Activities for Character Feelings for the Fourth Grade." Synonym, https://classroom.synonym.com/fun-writing-activities-character-feelings-fourth-grade-28737.html. 26 September 2017.