Station Eleven

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Museum Collection”

Imagining they live in a world like the one depicted in Station Eleven, students will gather and present on a collection of relics they have chosen to help themselves and others remember what they’ve lost.

Throughout the novel, various characters collect belongings to commemorate those they loved and the things they missed about society before it fell apart. Create your own collection of items you would most want to remember if you lived in the plague-decimated society depicted in Station Eleven. Describe why your things would be important to remember for society in general, such as in Clark’s museum collection, or for yourself, like in Kirsten’s collection. Draw connections to the text about each of the items you collect. Be prepared to share your artifacts with others. Use the questions below to guide your thinking.

• What items are important to your culture?
• What items represent the country you belong to before the fall of civilization?
• What personal items would you keep with you to remember?
• What items of nostalgia would help you remember better times?
• What reminders of your local community would you gather?
• What intellectual information would you collect?
• How are these items connected to the novel?

Then, present your relics to the class, touching briefly on your reasons for keeping each item. Be sure to connect each object to the needs and desires of the characters in the novel.

Teaching Suggestion: Consider setting a minimum and maximum number of items for students to bring to class. Students may have difficulty remembering to connect each of the items to the world in the novel. Consider allowing students to write notes for each item to submit after their presentation.