Orphan Train

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.

“Portaging”

In this activity, students will reflect on their most important belongings and the stories they tell.

Molly and Vivian carry their belongings from home to home multiple times. If you were to pack a bag with your most important belongings, what would they be, and why?

• Reflect on what possessions Vivian and Molly care most about and why.
• Free write or list the items that you most care about and why.
• Design a bag or piece of luggage that symbolizes something about your identity.
• Decide what would go in that bag.
• Write a story your bag and belongings tell. This could be one story that incorporates all the belongings or separate stories.

Present to a small group. Then, display your bags and stories around the classroom.

Share in a whole-class discussion reflecting on this process, lessons learned, and connections to the novel.

Teaching Suggestion: This process could elicit a variety of emotions for students, and revisiting class norms and resources available if students need to talk will probably be important. This activity can be a powerful opportunity for community building. The small-group sharing might provide an opportunity for students to be more honest than they would with the full class. They might also be given the option to display only part of their stories. Discussing the connection between this activity and the theme of Portaging at the beginning and end of the project could guide students to analyze the theme more deeply and make connections as they work.

Differentiation Suggestion: This activity could be altered for different learning styles. Visual learners might make a collage to present. Kinesthetic and interpersonal/social learners might act out parts of their stories. Auditory learners could write a song to tell their story or take an existing song and write new words to it. Learners who prefer to work independently could complete a written conversation at the end of the activity instead of a group share. Logical learners might use charts and maps more than paragraphs to tell their story.