Exploring Identity in The Giver

I wanted to students to make connections with The Giver before we even opened the book, so we started by exploring dystopian stories we've already read and watched. My students were so excited to share their knowledge! We built upon what they already know to form a classroom understanding of the dystopian genre. Click the icon to view the discussion slides. 

Because The Giver was our capstone novel in a year focused on identity, it was important for our class to piece together---literally--what we'd already studied as a foundation for our final unit.  With a little flare and some friendly competition, students pieced together puzzles for three prior units--Ghost, New Kid, and spoken word poetry--to create one larger puzzle. Click the icon to view the slides and one example of the finished product!    

I regard my classroom as a space for collaborative and insightful dialogue, with students challenging themselves and each other to think deeply and talk intentionally about the text and its application to life in our world. Our final socratic seminar about the text was so rich that we spent two days discussing the five questions on these slides. 

Literature provides lenses to evaluate our own world as much as realms near and far. Dystopian texts like The Giver introduce opportunities for students to question their own societies just as they interrogate the text. I created this Nearpod to stimulate classroom conversation about surveillance.  Click the icon to view the Nearpod.