Engagement Activities Using Smartboard for Tuck Everlasting

Engagement Activities Using Smartboard for Tuck Everlasting
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Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt is a story with immortality as its main theme. Because of its universal theme, Tuck Everlasting can be seen as a simple narrative of a family of immortals. For older learners, issues about justice, life, death and family relations can used as points of discussion.

Movie Version of Tuck Everlasting

Smart Board Lesson Plan for Tuck Everlasting

Objectives:

At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

  • Identify the characters, plot, conflict and main theme of the story
  • Analyze the consequences of having an eternal life
  • Show appreciation of the author’s writing style and craftmanship

Material:

Smartboard

Prerequisite:

Students should have read the whole book before doing the activities.

Engagement Activities:

After reading the book, divide the class into five groups. Each group will be given a group task which they will present in class using smartboards. After each presentation, the teacher will discuss the questions provided for each activity in class.

Task 1: Meet the Tucks

Based on the book, draw the faces of the Tucks on your smartboards. Picture how they look like despite of their ages.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How old are the Tucks?
  2. Why do they look young despite their age?
  3. Were the Tucks happy for having an eternal life? Why or why not?

Task 2: The Story of the Tucks

Role play how the Tucks found out the spring of eternal life and how they found out of its effects. Use the smartboard to draw the place where they found the spring.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Who found the spring of life? Why did they drink the water from the spring?
  2. What incident made the Tucks realize that they became immortal?
  3. How did they try to deal with their immortality?

Task 3: Threats to the Tucks!

Using things as symbols, show at least 3 problems that the Tucks encountered in the book.

Example: draw a girl’s face to symbolize Winnie Forster.

Discussion Questions:

  1. In what way was Winnie Forster a threat to the Tucks?
  2. In what way was the man in the yellow suit a danger to the Tucks?
  3. Why did the Tucks try to hide from the townspeople?

Task 4: To Live or Not to Live

Using a justice weighing scale on your smartboard, show the pros and cons of having immortal life. At the same time, show your group’s opinion through the scale whether it’s better to be immortal or not.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What are the benefits of immortality?
  2. What are the disadvantages of immortality?
  3. If you were one of the Tucks, will you be happy or sad that you are immortal?

Task 5: An Ending to Everlasting

Draw on your smartboard possible solutions to the Tuck’s problem of immortality.

Discussion Questions:

  1. If you were one of the Tucks, what would you do to end your immortality?
  2. Do you think that the Tucks should end their immortality? Why or why not?

Rubric for Evaluation:

Use the criteria below.

  • Connection to the Book : 10 points
  • Creativity: 10 points
  • Presentation: 5 points
  • Group Effort: 5 points

For a more active discussion, students who are listening to the presentation can be given a chance to make a change on the presenter’s group output. This can be in a form of peer evaluation.