Touching Spirit Bear Novel Study Bundle

DOWNLOAD THE FREE PREVIEW

It was a true labor of love putting this resource together, rereading the book, and revisiting the island with Cole, Garvey, Edwin, and Peter.

Purpose: The study guide and workbook is intended to guide your literary students to becoming literary scholars. It is designed to teach young scholars critical thinking skills as they conduct deep analysis of the text. The journey begins with some recommended pre-reading research and learning activities. Have your students conduct simple, on the surface, research of the environment, climate, flora, and fauna of the islands of southeast Alaska in order to ground their knowledge of the setting of the bulk of our story. Use the KWL and NWL (Need, Want, Leave behind) charts to tease their brains into looking at what is truly important to survive and to thrive. As a fun discussion with these charts, ask what they have in their lives that go beyond the necessities to survive and thrive? What could they give up?

Essential vocabulary is broken into four sections, beginning in the pre-reading, then after chapters 2 and 8, and prior to beginning Part 2 of the book. Each set of vocabulary words has an additional chart for your scholars (or yourselves!) to add words that may have been overlooked, or those your students are unfamiliar with.

Each chapter of the novel has accompanying “Questions to Consider” for you and your scholars to discuss and answer. You will note that all of these questions are higher order questions that take your students beyond the first tiers of knowledge. These questions are designed to help your students deeply analyze setting, character development, character influence on plot and setting, character interactions, and the all-important step of making personal connections between the reader and the text. Sentence stems are provided in the first two chapters to help your struggling writers, ELLs and SPED students model how to answer these open-ended questions.

Interspersed among the chapters, you will also find “Characters in Profile” sheets for Cole, Garvey, Edwin, Peter, Cindy Matthews, and William Matthews, as well as “Revisiting” profiles for Cole, Cindy and Peter. These will help students connect with the characters, and also help them map the growth of three of the most dynamic characters in the novel. Additionally, there is a creative writing assignment, plot diagrams for both sections of the novel, theme discussion pages, and a fun “Totem Pole Carving” page where your scholars can explore their personal journeys and family histories through the symbolism of First Nations peoples.

Please note that while our previews, and the PDF, are in color, we have also test printed in black and white, with no loss in usability. So, although color is recommended, if costs for your school or district make this prohibitive, the guide is still fully accessible. Additionally, although we recommend binding the workbook (and using cardstock for the cover and last page), this is also not required for success!

In addition to the Study Guide and Workbook, this bundle contains all of the Assessments for the novel, our Vocabulary Building Flashcards and Word Wall Sets, our Vocabulary Crosswords and Word Search Puzzles, the Bookmarks, and as a special extra, the Power Words! Vocabulary BINGO! pack that aligns to the Flashcards.

Thank you again for your purchase! I would greatly value your feedback! Please let me know how this (and other products you may have gotten from me) worked for you and your scholars/students! Is there any way you feel it could be improved? Email me at elainmiddleschool@gmail.com!

~Matthew