The Giver by Lois Lowry Reading 7 Introduction

The Giver by Lois Lowry Reading 7

Introduction Bell Work • What is a Utopia? • What is a Dystopia? • Pay careful attention to the underlined words on the following slide. On a piece of notebook paper, write down what you think each word means. Note what it is from the passage that makes you think this.

• Massive dehumanization, totalitarian government, rampant disease, post-apocalyptic terrains, cyber-genetic technologies, societal chaos and widespread urban violence are some of the common themes in dystopian films which bravely examine the ominous shadow cast by the future. • Maybe, people speculated, if any society were completely reorganized, it could be regenerated and, ultimately, perfected. Utopia was sought in America through the creation of model communities within the greater society.

Introduction Lois Lowry speaks… About growing up About the importance of education about “The Giver”

Novel Journals Introduction • As you read the novel, you will be asked to record your thoughts. • You will set up a Novel Journal. • The front page should have your name, the title of the book you are reading, and your class period. • You will add to this journal each day, so bring it to class! Better yet, leave it in the room! • Label each page with the title from that day’s slide.

Introduction Anticipation Guide • You will complete an anticipation guide over The Giver. • This will start you thinking about some of the big questions the novel addresses. • Likert scale • Explanation of opinion

Introduction Essential Questions • We will consider the following questions during our study of The Giver. – What are the characteristics of a community? – How do members of the community affect one another? – Is belonging to a community a good thing? – Should the government restrict personal freedoms for the good of the community? • Record these in the first page of your journal.

Theme/Motiffs (note where these come up in the book) • • • Individual vs. Society Freedom vs. Choice Feeling and Emotions Coming of Age Memory

Rules Pre-reading Chapters 1 -2 • As you listen to Chapters 1 and 2, write down at least 3 rules from the community in your novel journal. • You will share these rules with your teammates & the class once we are finished reading.

Chapters 1 -2 Journals: Rules (write) • What rules did you notice? Discuss in partners in your team. • With your partner, write in your novel journal some rules that we have to follow in our community. Which one is your least favorite rule and why? • Individually, write down a rule that you have broken. Turn this in to me. Do not write your name on this paper!

Chapters 1 -2 Learning Activity – Setting (write) • Setting is… (write it in your journal!) • Haiku – in your journal – select a key scene from the novel where the setting is described. – reread the passage and copy the important descriptive words. – choose 2 -3 images that stand out. – arrange words in Haiku form: 5 -7 -5

Chapters 1 -2 Learning Activity – A letter home (write) • You just read chapters 1 and 2 that described Jonas’ family and their lives. Pretend you just went on a visit to Jonas’ house. • Write a letter to one of your family members describing the experience and the way Jonas and his family live. • Compare how your life is similar or different than Jonas’ life.

Pre-reading Chapters 3 -4 Bell Work (discuss) • In your journal, write a few sentences answering the following question. Support your opinion with inferences (at least 2) you have made from the text. • Is Jonas’s community a utopia or a dystopia?

Pre-reading Chapters 3 -4 Euphemism • a word or phrase used in place of a term that might be considered too direct, harsh, unpleasant, or offensive • examples: – pass away (die) – break wind (fart) – be sick (vomit) – pink slip (get fired) • other examples? ?

Pre-reading Chapters 3 -4 Learning Activity: Language of Utopia • People in Jonas’s community use a lot of special words. You’ll have to use context to figure out their meaning. • Identify eight words and their meaning by going back and looking at the first two chapters. • As you read chapters 3 & 4, be on the lookout for more special words.

Chapters 3 -4 Journals: Assignments 1. List at least three assignments that have been mentioned in the book so far. 2. Which of the assignments, if you had to choose, would best fit your personality? 3. What can you infer about this community based on these assignments?

Chapter 5 -6 Bell Work • Packet Check • Work on the activity sheet from Mr. Reed • We will go over it as a class.

Chapter 5 Journals: Choices 1. What choices you can make in your daily life? 2. What choices can Jonas and the citizens in this community make? 3. How are your choices different then the choices Jonas can make? 4. What can we infer about the community based on what we know about the choices citizens can make?

Chapter 6 Journals: Ceremony Read the following passage: We dressed the baby in the white gown and went to church for the ceremony. Water was sprinkled on his head and prayers were said. A candle was lit. Afterward, we posed for pictures and ate cake. Our baby was baptized. Based on the passage, what is a ceremony? What characteristics do all ceremonies share?

Chapter 6 Journals: Ceremony • What types of ceremonies have you attended in your life? What stands out to you as important about each of the ceremonies? • Ceremony is defined as: a formal event to celebrate or honor something; a rite or ritual. • How close was your definition?

Bell Work Journals: Assigned vs. Selected Pre-reading Chapters 7 -8 • Read the following passage from the novel. Pay careful attention to the underlined words. • “Jonas has not been assigned. Jonas has been selected…The selection must be sound. It must be a unanimous choice of the Committee” (48). • What does assigned mean? • What does selected mean?

Ceremony of 12 Chapters 7 -8 Dear Student, Today you will go through the Ceremony of Twelve and be assigned a job from the world of The Giver. You will be given the opportunity to write about your feelings after being given this Assignment. Finally, we will have a sharing of feelings as a class. Thank you for your childhood! MR. Reed

Chapters 7 -8 Learning Activity: Assignment As you write your response to your Assignment, use the following questions to guide your thinking. • Introduce me to your Assignment. What job have you been assigned? What activities will you be expected to perform for this job? • Tell me about your views of this job. Do you think you will enjoy this job? Do you think this will be a job you will be able to do successfully? • Tell me whether or not you think this job fits your personality. Do you think your personality fits with what you will be required to do? • Imagine if you were assigned this job in “real” life, then tell me about what you think would be the best thing about having this job and what would be the worst thing about having this job. • Your written response should be a minimum of 8 sentences (that’s two sentences for each bullet point!).

Chapters 9 -10 Bell Work • Free write for about five minutes on the topic of: MEMORY • Some questions to spur your thinking: are memories always good? how do our memories affect our lives? our future? Should bad memories be erased?

Learning Activity: Town Historian Chapters 9 -10 • You are a town historian. You are tasked with recording the memories of older people in your community so the city’s past is not forgotten. • You will conduct an interview with a local resident who has resided here for most of their life. • You will write a narrative account based on your interview.

Journals: Memories Chapter 11 The memories Jonas receives are very detailed. These details give the reader a mental picture of what is happening. These pictures are created using imagery. • Write down at least 3 of the phrases from Chapter 11 that help you create a mental picture. • Tell me which of the five senses you used to create the image of this scene.

Learning Activity: Jonas’s Characteristics Chapter 12 • In pairs, discuss the context of the words used to describe Jonas. Then write down what you think each of the words means based on this and the synonyms we discussed.

Pre-reading Chapter 13 Bell Work • What is your favorite color? • Why do you love this color so much? • What do you think your favorite color says about you?

Chapter 13 Journals: Color Jonas now understands that he can see COLOR. The Giver explains that one time everything had a quality called color, but that when they went to Sameness the colors went away. • What do you think about their decision to lose color? • If they lost color, what do you think they gained?

Chapter 13 Learning Activity: True Colors • You will complete a survey that seeks to define your personality based on colors. • Complete the survey • Meet up with your classmates who are the same color as you • Discuss: do you think your personality really fits the description for the color you wound up with? why or why not?

Chapter 13 Learning Activity: Color Jonas’s World 1. Pick your favorite scene from the book so far. 2. Draw the scene the way everyone in the community sees it (black and white, shades of gray). 3. Draw it again the way Jonas and The Giver see it (in full color). 4. Write a paragraph explaining what you think is good and bad about having color in our lives today.

Pre-reading Chapters 14 and 15 Bell Work • In your journal, write about a time you felt lonely. Were you able to make yourself feel better? How? • Read chapters 14 & 15. • Return to your journal. How is Jonas’s loneliness different from yours? Are there similarities? What are they?

Journal: Choices Chapters 14 and 15 • Go back to your journal from chapter 5 and look at the choices you are able to make each day. • How would your choices be different in this community? What sorts of things would be completely out of your hands?

Journal: Choices Chapters 14 and 15 • Now that we know a little more about the choices that were made for the community, let’s stop and think about them. You will answer four questions about the following parts of the community. – Climate Control – Sameness – Assignments – Matching of Spouses – Family Units

1. What caused the community to choose to implement these changes? Make an inference for each. 2. What effect does each change have on the members of the community? Give examples from the text and/or make inferences. 3. Which of the choices listed do you think is the most beneficial for the community? Why? Support your answer with at least two reasons. You have to pick one! 4. Which of the choices listed do you think is the least beneficial, or even harmful, for the community? Why? Support your answer with at least two reasons.

Chapters 16 and 17 Journal: Memories – The Good and The Bad • Now that we have seen that not all the memories are good, does that change your views on the need for one person to “hold” all the memories for the community? • Why do you think Jonas’ first lie to his parents was important? • What do you think Jonas means when he tells Gabe that things could change?

Journal: Rosemary Chapter 18 • How does Rosemary’s training impact Jonas’s training? • Why do you think The Giver tells Jonas about Rosemary’s failure? • The Giver says “…I suppose I could help the whole community the way I’ve helped you” (106). Infer what he might be thinking here.

Pre-reading Chapters 19 and 20 Bell Work: Release • Now that we’ve progressed further into the novel, what do you think it means to be released? Support your opinion with inferences from the text. Write your answer in your journal.

Journal: Climax Chapter 19 • Why is Chapter 19 a turning point in the book? • What do you think will be the outcome of Jonas’s new realization? • What would you do if you were Jonas? • Make a prediction about what Jonas will do and then read chapter 20 to find out.

Journal: Escape Chapter 20 • What do you think about Jonas’s plan? How does it match up with your prediction? • What problems do you foresee for Jonas as he attempts his escape? • Answer these questions in your journal first. Next, you will share with a partner.

Chapters 19 and 20 Journal: Rules Revisited • Remember the list of broken rules you made at the start of the novel? • We are going to revisit those rules now that we know what release is.

Chapters 19 and 20 Learning Activity: Release • Complete the assignment about Release on your own.

Pre-reading Chapters 21 and 22 Journal: Predictions • Make some predictions about Jonas’s escape. What problems might he encounter?

Chapters 21 and 22 Journal: Predictions • Look back at your predictions for chapters 21 and 22. Do you need to revise them? If so, do that now. • In your teams, share your predictions and the revisions you had to make.

Pre-reading Chapter 23 Bell Work: Final chapter! • Write what you think will happen to Jonas and Gabe in the last chapter. Include at least five sentences.

Journal: The End Chapter 23 • How will Jonas’s leaving change his community? • Given what you know about utopias and dystopias, how would you classify Jonas’ community? Give me at least two reasons for your choice. • How does this book affect your views of a perfect world? • Why do you think this book has been challenged by so many people?

Chapter 23 Learning Activity: Letter to Elders • You have been chosen by the Council of Elders to create a new experimental form of government on an island upriver from the community. • This new community will be subject to the community rules except for changes you will implement. • The elders are interested in seeing how community members would handle going back to some of the old ways of life.

Chapter 23 Learning Activity: Letter to Elders • You will address the following issues in your experimental community: – marriage – family planning – euthanasia – career & educational choices – gov’t monitoring of individual behavior – elimination of feelings & memories – book censorship – necessity for a Receiver

Chapter 23 Learning Activity: Letter to Elders • Choose three (3) of the most important issues and state how and why you would change them. • You must justify your reasons in a proposal to the Council of Elders. • Must be in business letter format.