Seedfolks

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What do you think of when you hear the word “community”? Are all groups and shared spaces, such as neighborhoods or schools, communities? Why or why not? What specific components or qualities make a community? Does everyone need to belong for a space to be called a community? What kinds of barriers or challenges might prevent the creation of community in a shared space? What would it take for people in that space to overcome those challenges?

Teaching Suggestion: These questions work best as a quick brainstorm activity to activate prior knowledge before delving into one or more of the informational resources below. These questions can guide a class discussion or a small group discussion; they can also work as a think-pair-share or individual journal activity. Students may benefit from graphic organizers such as a T-chart or Venn diagram to help organize their thinking, invite comparison and contrast, and record their brainstorming. English Language Learners or emerging readers may benefit from pre-highlighted or annotated versions of the texts below. This prompt connects to the theme of Overcoming Separation With a Shared Goal.

• This article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review discusses the sociological concept of community.
• This TEDx video explores the components that make the speaker’s (Roger Kitchen’s) community great.
• This Smithsonian history of the community garden explores how gardens have helped create community in the United States.

2. What associations do you have for the word “instructive”? If a story were described as “instructive,” what kinds of features would you expect? What instructive stories have you heard or encountered? What kinds of characters and settings do they feature? What benefits and drawbacks do you see in this style of story?

Teaching Suggestion: These questions work best as a quick brainstorm activity to activate prior knowledge before delving deeper into the informational resources below. These questions can guide a class discussion or a small group discussion; they can also work as a think-pair-share or individual journal activity. Students may benefit from identifying a list of common instructive stories such as The Boy Who Cried Wolf or The Tortoise and the Hare to serve as concrete examples before they identify key narrative features.

• This Encyclopaedia Britannica article discusses the characteristics of three common types of instructive texts in Western culture.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

Think about a shared space that you visit regularly. This might be your neighborhood, your school, a place of worship, a sports league, or even an online space, such as a fandom, shared gaming server, or social media platform. Describe the aspects of this space that make it a community and note any aspects of community that might be lacking or unclear to you. Reflect on your sense of belonging within this community or shared space. If you feel you belong, what qualities reinforce your belonging? If you do not feel you belong, what signs or barriers show you that you do not belong? Identify one thing you would like to change or develop in this community or shared space.

Teaching Suggestion: Students may benefit from a quick brainstorm of the many possible shared spaces they might encounter. Students may also benefit from teacher modeling of their own reflections related to a shared space. Finally, students may benefit from reminders that people can belong to more than one shared space or community and to choose one they feel the most comfortable discussing. In the interest of student well-being, you may preface the prompt with a reminder that students can set their own boundaries for what they share based on personal comfort; you can also provide reminders of your classroom confidentiality and disclosure policies. This prompt connects to the theme of Overcoming Separation With a Shared Goal and possibly Growth as a Result of Acknowledging and Accepting Diverse Perspectives.

Differentiation Suggestion: An alternative or complementary approach might involve encouraging students to pair or group up for a supervised exploration of the school as a community. Allowing students to draw, map, or physically label aspects of community as they explore may further adapt the activity for visual and/or kinetic learners.