The Giver
The novel that invented the YA dystopian craze.
- Course Length: 3 weeks
- Course Type: Short Course
- Category:
- English
- Literature
- Middle School
Schools and Districts: We offer customized programs that won't break the bank. Get a quote.
Imagine, if you will
- a world in which everything's completely, entirely fair
- a community in which nobody stands out, or is teased, or strays too far from the norm
- a family in which everyone listens and shares, and where every problem is easily solved
Yeesh. It could sound perfect...or like a total nightmare. It all depends on who you are and how you see the world, right?
The world in The Giver is, on the surface, quite close to perfection. But underneath the novel's polished surface are some pretty high-stakes implications for the people who call it home. Stakes that make Panem look…not that scary.
Through this fifteen-lesson course, we'll read Lois Lowry's novel and consider it within the context of the current—crazy successful!—trend of dystopian young adult literature. We'll start by taking apart the idea of a utopia—a place that's perfect—because we need to know what the thing is before we can call something its opposite.
(Psst: "dystopia" and "utopia" are opposites.)
Once we're feeling pretty comfy with its genre, we'll dig into The Giver's setting, a place simply (creepily?) referred to as The Community, where our protagonist, Jonas, lives. As we follow Jonas through his twelfth birthday and entry into teen-dom, we'll find ourselves coming up against some big questions about pretty heavy stuff. Like life and death. Truth and big lies. What it means to be an individual. What it costs to live a perfect life.
Don't worry. It's not all philosophical and serious. There's unrequited love, broken bones, and critical thinking activities and comprehension quizzes with each lesson.
Daily multiple choice funtimes? See? We told you there's such a thing as a perfect society. Let's get started.
Unit Breakdown
1 The Giver - The Giver
Shmoop's The Giver is a standards-aligned middle school ELA course about killing babies. Wait—that's not what we meant. Lois Lowry's The Giver is an enduring, thematically rich adult novel about a dark dystopia where memories are lost, colors are forgotten, and there's no free will. Plus…babies in danger. Aren't you excited to start the course?
Sample Lesson - Introduction
Lesson 1.02: The Apple of His Eyes
In Chapter Two, Jonas gets all nostalgic on us as he thinks back to the year his family "received" Lily. Sweet, right? Or maybe a little creepy, since most people "receive" a puppy, not a child. Either way. It clues us in to some of the other, let's say, quirks of the community.
One of those quirks has to do with age. Basically, it only matters up to a point (and that point is twelve). After that, it's just one long road 'til you're an "elder". Jonas also introduces us to one specific Elder, The Giver.
Huh. Sounds familiar.
Chapter Three's is all up in those community quirks, too. For example, there's talk of Birthmothers, because, surprise surprise, people don't have kids the usual way in this world, but rather outsource that labor to one of several human incubators. Dehumanizing, much?
People think that Jonas and several other children with his rare pale eyes might have a Birthmother in common. And if that's not intriguing enough, we're told that Jonas's wacky eyes let me see things no one else can see…and that he himself can't explain.
Sample Lesson - Reading
Reading 1.1.02: Big Brother Is Watching
Mass-produced babies. Constant government surveillance. The apparent extinction of elephants and bears and who knows what other animals.
All these and more in this latest installment of Everyone's Favorite Dystopia.
As you work through Chapters Two and Three, make sure to take note of all the ways in which Jonas's world differs from our own, and consider what led events might have led to this strange society being founded. What evils were they trying to do away with, and was it worth the cost? Was it worth the cost of baby elephants?
Keep your book closer and your Shmoop summaries closer.
Sample Lesson - Activity
Activity 1.02a: Stop and Smell the Jonas
So we've had a lot to say about the strange world Lois Lowry has concocted in The Giver, but what about the young boy whose (weirdly pale) eyes we're seeing this world through? What's Jonas's deal? What is his personality like, and why is he so special that he gets "protag" (our fun word for protagonist) status? What does he love and what does he fear?
We're going to break it down with some good hard character analysis.
Let's try it with Jonas's friend, Asher. We already know Asher's not so great with the speaking. He mixes up his words. He talks too fast. People laugh. But what's a good word that would describe him?
- Careless? (Maybe he's just not paying a lot of attention to detail.)
- Indifferent? (Maybe he just doesn't care one way or the other.)
- Impulsive? (Maybe he acts before he thinks about what he's doing.)
Based on what we've read so far, it sounds like the third word—impulsive—might describe Asher best.
Think about how Jonas acts and reacts to his friends and family in the book's first three chapters. Choose three carefully selected character traits—words or phrases—that capture what we know about him so far.
For each character trait, include between one and three examples from the novel to back up your claim.
Finally, write two to three sentences about what it is about Jonas's character that suggests that he'll be the one to rebel against the society he lives in. He's just an ordinary 12-year-old…right?
Your character analysis should be 200 – 300 words long, and uploaded below.
Representing Information w/ Visual Component Rubric - 50 Points
Sample Lesson - Activity
- Course Length: 3 weeks
- Course Type: Short Course
- Category:
- English
- Literature
- Middle School
Schools and Districts: We offer customized programs that won't break the bank. Get a quote.