The Gilded Ones

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.

“Inspiring Motifs”

In this activity, students will create an art piece that visually represents the relationship between a major symbol or motif within the novel and conflict, theme, and character development.

In this activity, you will choose a strong symbol or motif from the novel and create an art piece that illustrates the relationship between this device and the novel’s conflict, theme, and character development. Your art will be shared and displayed along with an artist’s statement that briefly explains your device’s relationship to conflict, theme, and character development as well as how your artistic choices and liberties reflect this relationship.

• Brainstorm - Build a list of major symbols and motifs. Major examples include gold, purity, armor, and masks. Narrow down your choice of symbol or motif.
• Analyze - Review at least 3 passages that include your chosen device to determine how it relates to conflict, character development, and theme. You may choose to annotate, create a web, or collect quotes to organize your thinking.
• Planning - Plan or draft your artwork. Seek feedback from a partner or small group on your draft to ensure you meet all the requirements.
• Finalize - Create your art piece.
• Reflect - Write your artist’s statement. Open with a short paragraph that briefly explains your symbol or motif’s role in the novel and its relationship to theme, conflict, and character development. Then, explain how your artistic choices and representations capture this relationship visually.

Display your work in the class gallery. In your notes or a reading journal, choose 2-3 pieces of art other than your own to reflect upon and evaluate: What images best convey the meaning the artist intended? What new or stronger message conveyed in the art piece helps you as a reader to better understand the novel?

Teaching Suggestion: Students may benefit from discussing any parameters or limits to the term “art piece” before beginning. If the class completed the Discussion/Analysis prompt, it may be beneficial to advise against selecting “blood” as the chosen motif. Listing and discussing other major motifs and symbols as a class may benefit student brainstorming. To showcase student work, formal presentations or physical or digital displays may serve as appropriate strategies.

Differentiation Suggestion:  For students with organizational or executive functioning learning differences, graphic organizers or step guides may be beneficial. For multilingual learners, preselected and/or pre-highlighted passages related to their symbol or motif may help with time management and ease the transition from language comprehension to analysis. To include more learning styles and cultures, the term “art piece” might be expanded to include performance art forms such as video or storyboarding, creative writing forms, or oral response forms such as monologue. 

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Losing and gaining faith are integral to Deka’s character development and coming of age.

• How might Deka’s changing attitudes toward the Infinite Wisdoms and the Gilded Ones relate to the process of growing up? (topic sentence)
• Explain when and why Deka’s attitudes change over the course of the story.  Analyze and discuss what this shift shows about the process of growing up.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, evaluate with rationale whether Deka’s shifting beliefs are unique to her coming of age or if they represent a universal aspect of growing up.

2. The concept of purity is used as a form of social control in Oteran society, shaping its hierarchy, laws, customs, and individual behaviors.

• What are the impacts of this social control on Deka’s sense of self? (topic sentence)
• Explain how the concept of purity controls most aspects of Deka’s life before joining the other alaki and how it continues to impact her identity and self-worth throughout the novel. Analyze and discuss at least 3 events or situations that support your topic sentence.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explain what worth Deka ultimately places on the concept of purity and why.

3. Love plays a pivotal role in the events of the novel and in Deka’s own character development.

• How does love function as a catalyst to Deka’s development? (topic sentence)
• Trace Deka’s transformation into the Chosen One, the Nuru. Analyze and discuss the strongest moments and detail the ways in which love is connected.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explain what the role of love might suggest about overcoming discrimination and oppression.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Throughout the novel, many characters, including Deka, express biases, though not every character’s bias leads to discrimination and violence. What traits or habits separate those who act violently on their biases from those who do not? What conditions lead to the development of the traits and habits that prevent characters from acting on their biases? In a 3- or 5-paragraph essay, analyze and discuss the relationship between bias and discrimination in the novel. Use text evidence to support your points.

2. Characters experience imprisonment throughout the novel. What different forms of imprisonment do characters experience? Consider characters like Keita. In what ways do the oppressive patriarchal systems disadvantage men as well as women? In a 3- or 5-paragraph essay, explore the motif of imprisonment in the novel. How do systems of imprisonment, enslavement, and subjugation function and what benefits do they confer to those in power? Use text evidence and quotations to support your points.

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. In what way is the villagers’ cruelty towards Deka after the encounter with deathshrieks adding insult to injury?

A) The villagers do not thank her; they imprison and kill her.

B) Deka knows she is worthy of their love even if they do not.

C) Deka has never felt welcomed by the other villagers.

D) Her father has an illness and the shock of her impurity is killing him.

2. Which action best captures Elder Olam’s hypocrisy?

A) Lying to Deka’s father that Deka is dead

B) Selling Deka’s golden blood

C) Letting White Hands intervene in the Death Mandate

D) Calling Deka a monster

3. Why do Deka and Britta consider themselves lucky despite all they have lost?

A) White Hands prepared them to join the war without fear.

B) They did not succumb to sickness on the long road south.

C) White Hands did not chain them like the other alaki.

D) They have their friendship and White Hands’s kindness.

4. What does their first trail of running reveal to the alaki women?

A) They are weak and out of shape after traveling.

B) They will not thrive at Warthu Bera.

C) They are strong enough for running, despite past advice.

D) They will be worn down by the karmokos.

5. Why is having female teachers so significant for the alaki?

A) Alaki are not permitted to go to school.

B) Alaki realize that women will always be relegated in certain types of work.

C) Female teachers are crueler than the male teachers.

D) Alaki feel safer and see that women are smart, capable, and strong.

6. What is the significance of the alaki choosing to be demons rather than women?

A) They are reclaiming a negative label and using it for a worthy cause.

B) They prove they are shameless and have no fear of reprimand.

C) They scare their male counterparts into working harder.

D) They succumb to the realization that the world is against them.

7. Why does finding her mother’s heraldry in the archives bring Deka disappointment?

A) Deka realizes her mother was cast out of the Shadows because she became pregnant.

B) Deka loses trust when she realizes her mother was an imperial spy.

C) Deka realizes the scant entry raises more questions about her identity than it answers.

D) Deka hoped her mother might have just faked her death and returned to the Shadows.

8. How does Belcalis view death?

A) She hates the thought of death.

B) She sees it as warmth and peace.

C) She fears it because she has died so often.

D) She believes death is easy compared to what she has lived through.

9. What is the first indication to Deka that the deathshrieks might not be as animalistic as she has been told?

A) She watches them help each other escape.

B) They use advanced tactics and have commanders and troops like human armies.

C) They communicate with the equus Braima and Masaima.

D) Their living space has livestock, architecture, and a place of worship.

10. What is symbolic in the gilding all throughout the emperor’s palace?

A) The emperor’s power is tied to the alaki’s spilled blood and suffering.

B) The emperor is wealthy and powerful.

C) The emperor is a divine incarnation of Kuru, the Sun.

D) The emperor is not as rich as he seems, since nothing is solid gold.

11. As she grows in power and wins more battles, what is Deka most afraid of?

A) The loss of her humanity

B) A return to her former life

C) Britta and Keita’s safety

D) The emperor

12. What makes the campaign different from the raids Deka has completed?

A) Deka will be leading the campaign rather than following orders.

B) There are higher stakes for failure and more publicity.

C) Deka will be separated from her unit for the first time.

D) The deathshrieks are fiercer.

13. Which of the following sums up the proverb “Every once in a while, the horned lizard shows his stripes”? (Chapter 29)

A) A person cannot hide their true nature forever.

B) Those with the loudest voice are usually the most timid.

C) There are times to fight and times to make peace.

D) Even the most guarded people show their vulnerable side.

14. To whom does Keita show devotion when he dismembers Deka?

A) Kuru, the Sun

B) Deka

C) Captain Kelechi

D) The emperor

15. What does Deka’s triumph over Emperor Gezo most clearly symbolize?

A) The end of the Gezo Dynasty

B) The triumph of femininity over masculinity

C) Love conquering fear and hate

D) A fresh start and a new natural order

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. How does her shifting attitude toward her golden blood encapsulate Deka’s coming of age?

2. Based on the story, what factors lead to cycles of discrimination and violence and what might stop the cycle?