Teaching Sharon Creech’s

Walk Two Moons

Kenny, Esperanza, and Sal Travel to Self Discovery

Through Family Journeys

National Council of Teachers of English Fall Convention

San Diego, California

November 23, 2003

M.11

Bonnie Ericson

Department of Secondary Education

CaliforniaStateUniversity, Northridge

Teaching Sharon Creech’s Walk Two Moons

Summary

Sal entertains her grandparents as they drive from Ohio to Idaho by telling them her friend Phoebe’s remarkable story. At the same time, Sal’s own story emerges – the story of a teen-aged girl who wants desperately to be reunited with her mother. As it says on the book jacket, “In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.”

Awards

Newbery Medal, 1995, American Library Association Notable Children’s Book, 1995,

School Library Journal Best Book of 1994

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITIES

Use one or more of these activities along with other standards-based activities that you find effective with your students.

  1. Car ride activity from K. Sato’s materials for The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963
  2. Quotation Responses
  3. Book Preview

[Note: Journal prompts 1, 2, or 3 would also be suitable for introductory writing and discussion.]

B. Quotation Responses

Directions: Create groups of three-four students, and provide each group with one of the following quotations from the book. Each group should read the quotation aloud two times, then discuss these questions:

  1. What seems to be happening? Who is involved? What image of this scene do you see in your mind?
  2. What questions do you have about the characters or what’s happening as a result of reading and discussing the quotation?
  3. What do you think the book will be about, given this scene?

In a whole class setting, an individual from each group reads the group’s quotation to the class and gives a summary of the group’s conversation about the quote.

A. “I have lived most of my thirteen years in Bybanks, Kentucky, which is not much more than a caboodle of houses roosting in a green spot alongside the Ohio River. Just over a year ago, my father plucked me up like a weed and took me and all our belongings (no, that is not true – he did not bring the chestnut tree, the willow, the maple, the hayloft, or the swimming hole, which all belonged to me) and we drove three hundred miles straight north and stopped in front of a house in Euclid, Ohio.” (1)

B. “My father started chipping away at a plaster wall in the living room of our house in Bybanks shortly after my mother left us one April morning. Our house was an old farmhouse that my parents had been restoring, room by room. Each night as he waited to hear from my mother, he chipped away at that wall. On the night that we got the bad news – that she was not returning—he pounded on that wall with a chisel and a hammer. At two o’clock in the morning, he came up to my room. I was not asleep. He led me downstairs and shoed me what he had found. Hidden behind the wall was a brick fireplace. The reason that Phoebe’s story reminds me of that plaster wall and the hidden fireplace is that beneath Phoebe’s story was another one. Mine.” (3)

C “But I had decided to go and I would go, and I had to be there by my mother’s birthday. This was extremely important. I believed that if there was any chance to bring my mother back home it would happen on her birthday. If I had said this aloud to my father or grandparents, they would have said that I might as well try to catch a fish in the air, so I did not say it aloud. But I believed it.” (6)

D “’Being a mother is like trying to hold a wolf by the ears,’ Gram said. ‘If you have three or four – or more – chickabiddies, you’re dancing on a hot griddle all the time. You don’t have time to think about anything else. And if you’ve only got one or two, it’s almost harder. You have room left over – empty spaces that you think you’ve got to fill up.’” (53)

E “After driving so long through the flat South Dakota prairie, it was a shock to come upon the Badlands. It was as if someone had ironed out all the rest of South Dakota and smooshed all the hills and valleys and rocks into this spot. Right smack in the middle of the flat plains were jagged peaks and steep gorges. Above was the high blue sky and below were the pink and purple and block rocks. You can stand right on the edge of the gorges and see down, down into the most treacherous ravines, lined with sharp, rough outcroppings. You expect to see human skeletons dangling here and there.” (143)

F “On the day after Mr. Birkway appeared at Phoebe’s house and told us about Mr. Cadaver, Phoebe and I put our plans in motion. We were going to track down Sergeant Bickle’s son and according to Phoebe, discover the whereabouts of Phoebe’s mother. I wasn’t positive that Sergeant Bickle’s son was a lunatic, and I wasn’t convinced that he would lead us to Phoebe’s mother, but enough of Phoebe’s tales had been transplanted into my brain so that I was caught up in the plan. Like Phoebe, I was ready to take some action.” (227-228)

G “But as I sat there thinking about these things, it occurred to me that a person couldn’t stay locked up in the house like Phoebe and her mother had tried to do at first. A person had to go out and do things and see things, and I wondered, for the first time, if this had something to do with Gram and Gramps taking me on this trip.” (257)

C. Book Preview*

Directions: In groups of three or four, students complete these activities:

  1. Look at the front cover for the book’s title and author. What does the illustration show? What award has the book won? Based on this information only, make a guess about what the book could be about.
  2. Read the blurb on the back cover. How would you rate it for grabbing your attention on a scale of 1 – 5? Explain. What did you learn from the back cover? If you’d like, revise your prediction about what the book will be about.
  3. Open the book and check for chapter breaks and chapter titles. Are the chapters long or short? What do the titles of the chapters tell you?
  4. Read the first page and either stick with your prediction or modify it.
  5. Read the first five pages and the top line on page 6. Make a list of the words you don’t know or are unsure about. Based on these pages, is the book going to be easy to read? Challenging? Somewhere in between?

After the groups finish, review the outcomes in a brief whole class discussion.

*Modified from the word of Rebekah Caplan and Terry Moore, Senior Associates, Secondary Literacy: NationalCenter on Education and the Economy.

DURING READING ACTIVITIES

Use one or more of these activities along with other standards-based activities that you find effective with your students.

A.Mapping the Journey

  1. Journal Prompts
  2. Poetry from Mr. Birkway’s Class
  3. Vocabulary Cards

A. Mapping the Journey

Directions: Post a map of the United States on a bulletin board or wall in the classroom. Locate Bybanks, Kentucky and Euclid, Ohio and mark with pushpins. Connect the pins with yarn. As Sal and her grandparents make their journey, continue to mark the locations mentioned in the book – e.g., the Wisconsin Dells, South Dakota Badlands, Yellowstone National Park, etc. Students can be asked to summarize the events that occurred at a specific location, and these can be written on sticky notes and posted on the map near the place. [Note: A US map is available without charge at AAA if you’re a member.]

B. Journal Prompts

Directions: These journal prompts are designed to address different types of writing: descriptive, narrative, analytic, and persuasive. Assign each at an appropriate point in the reading to promote comprehension of characters, connections to personal experiences, and classroom discussion. [Note: One of these prompts might also be further developed as an essay writing assignment.]

  1. Tell about a time you took a lengthy car ride or trip with someone in your family. Where were you going and why? What did you and others do during the trip?
  2. ‘Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins.’ This saying is the source of the book’s title. Explain what this means to you, and tell of something that has happened to you or someone you know that illustrates this saying.
  3. Have you ever moved from one place to another? If not, it’s likely you have a friend who has. Describe your move (or your friend’s). Why did you move? How did you get from one place to the next? What were the most difficult parts of the move? What were your emotions related to the move?
  4. Sal’s full name is Salamanca Tree Biddle, and she explains how her parents decided to give her this name. What is your full name and how did you get this name? What does your name mean? Are you named after anyone? Do you like your name? Explain why/why not.
  5. Sal’s grandmother calls her ‘Chickabiddy’. Why does she call Sal by this name, and do you think Sal likes it? Sometimes Sal is called ‘Salamander.’ Do you have a nickname you’re called by someone in your family or a friend? Explain how you got this nickname and whether or not you like it.
  6. ‘Everyone has his own agenda.’ Explain what this means to you, and tell of something that has happened to you or someone you know that illustrates this saying.
  7. Mr. Birkway, the English teacher, changes the names but reads aloud to his class parts of what different students have written in their journals. Is this a good idea, or a bad idea? Explain your reasons so that you’d persuade someone who was undecided.
  8. Mr. Birkway, the English teacher, is quite a character. Think of an unusual teacher you had when you were in grade school. Change the name, and then describe that teacher. What did he or she look like? What did he or she do that is memorable? Was he or she a good teacher? Explain why or why not.
  9. Is Mr. Birkway a good teacher? Explain your answer.
  10. ‘In the course of a lifetime, what does it matter?’ Explain what this means to you, and tell of something that has happened to you or someone you know that illustrates this saying.
  11. Gram and Sal don’t like the term ‘Native American’ and Sal changes the ‘Injun Joe’s’ towel at their motel so it reads ‘Indian Joe’s’. A man Sal talks to says he is an ‘American Indian.’ What do you see as the differences between some of these terms? Explain why think the author included this issue about names in her book.
  12. ‘You can’t keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.’ Explain what this means to you, and tell of something that has happened to you or someone you know that illustrates this saying.
  13. Sal visits and describes several interesting and beautiful places – among others, the Missouri River, in YellowstoneNational Park, and the winding mountainous roads in Idaho. Describe a place that you have visited and made an impression on you. Include as many details as you can remember: sights, sounds, smells, etc.
  14. ‘We never know the worth of water until the well is dry.’ Explain what this means to you, and tell of something that has happened to you or someone you know that illustrates this saying.
  15. When Phoebe first learns she has a stepbrother, she is very angry with her mother. Does Phoebe have a right to be this angry? If you were her friend, what advice would you give her at this point in the story? Be persuasive in the advice you provide.

C. Poetry from Mr. Birkway’s Class

Directions: See the attached copies of “ Stopping By Woods,” “newlY born horse,” and “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls.” Assign a different poem to groups of four, so that two or three groups read each poem. Each group should read their poem aloud, discuss the poem and attempt to make sense of it, and then create three questions for the whole class to discuss. The questions are turned into the teacher to assist with the whole class discussion of the poems. As part of that whole class discussion, students will compare their understandings of the poems to those of Sal or Mr. Birkway’s class (see pp. 123, 181, 211). [Note: a similar activity could be done with the myths for Prometheus and Pandora, and American Indian myths about Napi, Estsanatleihi, thunder gods, earth makers, etc.]

Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Eveningthe little horse isnewlY

Whose woods these are I think I know,the little horse is newlY

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping hereBorn)he knows nothing,and feels

To watch his woods fill up with snow.everything;all around whom is

My little horse must think it queer,perfectly a strange

To stop without a farmhouse nearness Of sun

Between the woods and frozen lakelight and of fragrance and of

The darkest evening of the year.

Singing)is ev

He give his harness bells a shakeerywhere(a welcom

To ask if there is some mistake,ing dream:is amazing)

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.this world lies:smoothbeautifuL

ly folded;a(brea

The woods are lovely dark and deep;thing and a gro

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep:Wing)silence,who;

And miles to go before I sleep.is:somE

Robert FrostoNe.

e.e. cummings

The Tide Rises, the TideFalls

The tide rises, the tide falls,

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;

Along the sea-sands damp and brown

The traveler hastens toward the town,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;

The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

Efface the footprints in the sands,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;curlew: a sea bird

The day returns, but nevermorehostler: the person who takes care

Returns the traveler to the shore,of horses

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

D. Vocabulary Cards*

Directions: Provide two large index cards to each student, and explain the information that they will be providing about a word on the card (see below). Assign words to individual students so each has two, and all the words are assigned. Students complete the activity, and then share their cards with the class. Display these in the classroom, and as the words come up in the reading, review their meanings. [*Inspired by lessons from Victoria Edwards and Helen Saporito.]

1. lunatic (9)

And that is how I happened to … tell them about Phoebe Winterbottom, her disappearing mother, and the lunatic.

2. cadaver (10, 22)

“… you know what cadaver means?” Actually I did not. “It means dead body.” “Are you sure?”

3. defiance (15)

My mother said that Grandmother Pickford’s one act of defiance in her whole life as a Pickford was in naming her. Grandmother Pickford … named my mother Chanhassen.

4. gnarled (18)

A thick, gnarled cane with a handle carved in the shape of a cobra’s head lay across her knees.

5. gallantly (27)

“Excuse me,” Gramps said gallantly. “I believe I see a damsel in some distress,” and off he marched to her rescue.

6. diabolic (29)

“What was the diabolic thing that happened to Mr. Cadaver?” Gramps asked. “You didn’t tell us that yet.”

7. divulge (29)

I explained that just as Phoebe was going to divulge the purely awful thing that had happened to

Mr. Cadaver, her father came home from work….

8. vivid (45)

Like I said, she has a vivid imagination.

9. pandemonium (46)

It was complete pandemonium at the Finneys’. Mary Lou had an older sister and three brothers. In addition, there were her parents and Ben.

10. gullible (54)

Sometimes I am a little slow to figure these things out. My father once said I was as gullible as a fish.

11. primitive (56)

My mother had not liked the term Native Americans. She thought it sounded primitive and stiff.

12. intriguing (60)

Mary Lou thought the messages were intriguing.

13. cantankerous (98)

I think fear had made us all a little cantankerous.

14. sullen (102)

… I walked home with Phoebe after school. She was … sullen as a three-legged mule, and I was not quite sure why.