The Sea of Monsters

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.

“Demigod Family Trees”

In this activity, students will create family trees for the demigods in The Sea of Monsters in order to compare and contrast their strengths.

The characters in The Sea of Monsters are broken into many groups, including demigods, gods, and monsters. Within the demigod group, there are subcategories based on godly parents, and each subcategory has different strengths. For example, Poseidon’s children have powers over water, while Athena’s children possess a gift for strategy. Individually or with a partner, create family trees for the demigods in the novel and consider the strengths of each demigod.

• Make a list of all of the demigod characters and their parents in the novel.
• Create a tree for each demigod that visually represents how family members are related to each other.
• Beside each demigod in the family tree, note the strengths that character possesses.
• Write a paragraph that describes how the children of each god are both similar and different.

Share your family trees with the class. Describe the tree and the characters, and discuss the demigods’ similarities and differences with your classmates. In your presentation, consider the ways in which your findings align with the theme that Not All Members of a Group Are the Same.

Teaching Suggestion: It may be beneficial to have an example of a family tree available to students during this exercise, which you could create based on your own family. If you prefer not to have oral presentations, you might consider asking each group to affix their tree to the wall of the classroom, thereby creating a gallery of family trees that all students could peruse. The discussion at the end could tie into the theme Not All Members of a Group Are the Same.

Differentiation Suggestion: Working with a partner or small group will make this assignment more manageable for students who struggle with larger tasks or who have executive function challenges. For these students, you might also consider breaking the task into chunks by offering them a single bullet point at a time. After each bullet point has been completed, you might check in with these students to support their progress.