Gathering Blue

At the end of the novel, Kira decides to stay in her community to try to create a better future. How realistic do you think her ambitions are? What evidence is there in the text that argues for or against her eventual success?

Teaching Suggestion: Before students are prepared to discuss or write about this prompt, they will need to gather textual evidence to form and support their opinions. Encourage students to gather evidence broadly, considering things like Kira’s personal qualities, her relationships, the power structure in her community, the events that preceded the story, and the plot of the story itself. Students may have strong opinions about Kira’s plans for the future even before they have thoroughly considered the evidence. You can remind them that they should let the evidence lead to their thesis, not the other way around. You might even have students gather evidence in small groups and then require that their arguments take into account all of the evidence their group gathers rather than relying on only a convenient segment of this evidence.

Differentiation Suggestion: Students with conditions that impact their reading fluency may struggle to collect evidence from large sections of text. These students, particularly, will benefit from working with a group to collect evidence; you can vary the size of these groups according to how much text you would like each member to be responsible for reviewing.