BDA: Tuck Everlasting

These are some Before, During, and After activities for Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt:

Before You Begin Reading…
Complete one of the following activities.

1. Write a poem or a song on the topic of life or death or about both life and death. Write a minimum of half a page.


2. Divide a poster into two sides. Use words and pictures to decorate one side, so it represents “life.” Decorate the other side, so it represents “death.”


3. What would you like on your tombstone? What would you like it to say? What do you want to be remembered for? Design your own stone.


4. Fill out this Anticipation Guide. Write "+" or "-" or "=" next to each item listed below, based on if you believe it is a positive thing (+), a negative thing (-), or it could it be both (=).
   
   • A messy room
   
   
   • Eating fish
   
   
   • Making money
   
   
   • Killing people
   
   
   • Touching toads
   
   
   • Dying

While You Are Reading…
Complete one of the following activities.

1. Personification is giving human attributes to objects, animals, ideas, and other things. Create a log with the following column headings. Then, fill in the columns as you read.
   
   • Object
   
   
   • Human Characteristic
   
   
   • Chapter #


2. The characters in the book are compared to many objects, animals, etc. through the use of similes and metaphors. As you read, write down the names of the characters and the objects and animals each character is compared to.


3. As you read, pretend you are Winnie, and keep a journal of the important events that happen to her as well as the thoughts and ideas she has.


4. While you read, draw a map of Treegap and the surrounding area. Make sure you include Winnie’s cottage, the gate, the road, the toad, Tuck’s house, the jailhouse, the gallows, the pond, the tree, the hill, the spring.


5. The author uses foreshadowing in the book to give you a hint at what might happen next. At the end of each chapter, write a paragraph describing what you think will happen next.

When You Have Finished Reading…
Complete one of the following activities.

1. Would you have made the same choices Winnie did? Why or why not? What would you have done? Write at least one page.


2. Imagine you were born at the same time as Winnie in 1870, and you drank the water. Create a scrapbook of the highpoints of your life. Be creative. Include important historical events.


3. Write a poem describing life from the point of view of Winnie’s friend the toad.


4. Compare Tuck’s and Jesse’s views on the water. Why do you think they each feel the way they do? Whom do you identify with more?


5. Winnie thinks a lot about the rightness and wrongness of things. What do you think about the rightness and wrongness of the following: keeping a messy room, eating fish, making money, killing people, touching toes, and dying?

Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 6: Teach a Poem

Have each student present a poem to the class.

After reading the poem aloud, students can discuss the following:

• Author - Who is the author? What is his or her history? When did he or she write this poem? Give additional pertinent author background information.


• Figurative Speech - metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole


• Poetic Devices - onomatopoeia, repetition, alliteration


• Rhyme Scheme - Does the poem rhyme? If so, which lines rhyme? How many lines does the poem contain? How many stanzas? Is this poem in a particular form such as a sonnet or a limerick?


• Meter - What is th meter of the poem? Iambic? Trochaic? How many syllables are accented per line?


• Analysis of the Poem - What does it mean? How is that meaning conveyed? Could there be alternate interpretations?

Metaphor Mystery Poem

How to write a metaphor mystery poem:

1. Pick a thing to describe. This is the title of your poem.


2. Brainstorm. Write down as many things as you can that are like your subject in some way. Think about how the things are similar.


3. Pick at least 5 of the things you wrote down during the last step.


4. Create the lines of your poem from the five things.


5. Now, you can read the lines of your poem to people and see if they can guess the mystery subject, the title of your poem.

Examples: (See if you can guess the subject of each poem. The answers are below, written backwards.)

Poem 1:

Cotton balls
Fuzzy rabbit tails
Grandfather's whiskers
Spun sugar
White paint spattered on a workman's blue jeans

Poem 2:

Heartbeat
Steady drummer
Metronome
Ticking bomb
Rooster crow

Poem Example 1: SDUOLC
Poem Example 2: KCOLC

Color Metaphor Poem

To create a Color Metaphor poem:

1. Choose a color. (Creative color names may be found on crayons or on paint color sample strips.)


2. Brainstorm a list of things that that color makes you think of.


3. Circle your most creative comparisons.


4. Make a poem out of your best ideas. (Remember, a metaphor is a comparison between two things without using "like" or "as." You are comparing the color that you chose to the items that you circled.)

Example:

Yellow is sunshine
pollen from the pine tree
honey of the hive
back of the bumblebee
the Autumn moon

It's springtime
and warmth
and a hug
in your mother's arms
It's joy and it's love

Yellow is
buttercups and daffodils
smiling up at me
embracing and illuminating
the wintered earth