Teaching Character Through The 7 E's

Performance character—all the virtues such as effort, diligence, positive attitude, and perseverance that help us do our best work.
Moral character—all the virtues such as honesty, respect, fairness, and caring that help us be our best in relationships.

• Explain it
  Define it, describe it (what does it look like?), and discuss its importance.
• Examine it
  In literature, history, and current events.
• Exhibit it
  Through your personal example.
• Expect it
  Through mutually understood rules and consequences.
• Experience it
  In everyday relationships and activities.
• Encourage it
  Through goal-setting and daily practice.
• Evaluate it
  Through feedback and student self-assessment.

First-grade teacher Jan Gorman shows how to use the 7 E's to unlock the character-building power of children's literature. She teaches a virtue a week, beginning with caring. She gathers her students in a circle and elicits their thoughts about the following questions, making a visual web of their responses:

• What is caring?
• Why is it important?
• How can each of us show caring? In our classroom? Our school? Our families?

She then reads a picture book that exemplifies the theme of caring: Peter Golenbock's Teammates. It tells the story of how Brooklyn Dodgers captain Pee Wee Reese stood by Jackie Robinson when Jackie faced racism, even from some of his teammates, for being the first black man to play major league baseball. After the story, the teacher conducts a discussion, asking: "Who in the story showed caring? Who did not show caring?"

Then she says, "I want you to remember this story and make it your goal to show caring toward each other during the rest of the day." When a child behaves in caring way, she publicly compliments that child. If a child behaves in an unkind way, she gently corrects that student privately: "Did that behavior show caring? Remember our story . . . remember our discussion."

On each subsequent day of the week, she reads a different children's book about caring, followed by another class discussion. She repeats her challenge to children to act in a caring way and again looks for opportunities to compliment or correct their behavior.

"By the end of the week," she says, "caring has been established as an expectation in my classroom." During the following weeks, she repeats this process with different virtues such as courtesy, courage, and perseverance.