This is an activity best used in cooperative groups. The basic idea is to search through a text to find passages which prove statements students make upon finishing a novel, play, short story, or poem. I use it several times throughout the course of a year, usually as an exercise in characterization, but I have also found it adaptable to the study of plot, setting and theme.
Students list the major players in the work they have read.
On the board or overhead I set up a column for each character named and ask the students to blurt out some traits for each. Invariably someone shouts a ridiculous response. Next each group is assigned a character for which they must locate proof in the text to support the characteristics I assign them from our list. They may be able to find proof to the contrary of the trait listed. That works too.