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?

Dialogue Poem

In dialogue poems, a conversation takes place. A person may have a conversation with him- or herself. Two or more objects or animals may talk together. Two people may have a discussion. A person may talk to an animal or object.

Example:

Sock and Shoe Speak

"Oh no!" said my sock,
"What a smell!
You need a bath, Mr. Shoe.
I can tell!"

"I'm leather," said Shoe.
"I don't smell.
Your dryer sheet stink!
I'm unwell!"

"I need a clothespin,"
said the sock.
"It's the only way
we will walk."

Shoe laughed and he smiled
"With no nose,
Sock, what will you do?
Hold your toes?"

I tugged on my shoe
"They're so tight!
Would you both please
stop with this fight!"

See another example of one of my dialogue poems: Wind and Dandelion.

Being the Thing Poem (Personification)

Imagine that you are your pencil. Describe a day in your life as a pencil. How does it feel in your pencil case? How about when you are lost in the bottom of a locker?

A poem about your life may go like this:

I came in a package of twelve
You took me out first
And I was your favorite
You used me on all your exams
Until the day
You lent me to the kid
Who sits behind you
He tapped me rapidly
He gnawed me repeatedly
And when the period was over
And he finally handed me back to you
You said "Ew.
You know what?
Just keep it."
And I spent the rest of my days
Tapped and gnawed
Staring at the back of your head
From the hand of Beaver Boy.

When you give human qualities (like feeling emotions and speaking) to an animal or object, it is called personification.

Brainstorm ideas about your life as an object or an animal. Then, write a poem about your life as that object. Include what you do and how you feel.