What are some cues used to analyze a character in a literary passage?

Prepare for the Praxis Core Skills for Educators: Reading (5713) exam. Engage with flashcards and multiple-choice questions, each accompanied by hints and explanations. Boost your readiness for exam day!

The main idea is recognizing the cues a text uses to reveal what a character is like. When analyzing a character, you pull evidence from the text about what they do (actions), what they say (dialogue), what they think (inner thoughts), how they relate to other people (relationships), and how they change over the course of the story (development). These cues together show the character’s personality, motives, and growth in a way that reading the surface cannot. For example, actions demonstrate consistent patterns, dialogue shows voice and priorities, thoughts reveal inner conflicts, relationships illustrate how others influence and are influenced by the character, and changes across the story show how the character develops. In contrast, things like the number of chapters, the color of the cover, or the weather at the start don’t provide direct insight into the character itself; they’re about structure, design, or setting rather than who the character truly is.