Week 12 Discussion Questions & Culminating Activities

Finish your culminating activity!

Choose as many questions as your grade level. (some of these questions are repeats so don’t choose the same questions twice)

Anyone can answer more questions for extra ELH tickets.  However, I’d rather you write detailed answers to a few questions than perfunctory (short and shallow) answers to many questions.  Don’t answer more than 10.

Read the questions before you read the chapters in the book!  Circle questions that look interesting.  Restate the question in your answer and use complete sentences.   Everyone must do #1.  (Staple this paper to your lined notebook paper on which you answer the questions.)

1.      Every few pages write a one or two-word reminder of what is happening in the book so you can find key passages later.  Mark funny parts too as well as how you learn what Alcatraz is like (character development.)

2.      Vocabulary: choose 10 or more words from the list and make a crossword puzzle (puzzle-maker.com is a good free source) using either a definition as a clue or the word in the sentence from the book (see page numbers).  Include your word list on the crossword puzzle.

3.      Themes:A theme is the main idea or message of a novel/story/movie.  A literary work may have more than one theme and its themes may be explicitly stated or implied.  Here’s a quote that suggests one possible theme of Alcatraz.  “A clever person can make anything turn to his advantage, no matter how much a disadvantage it may seem at first” (Sanderson 100)[1].  Do you agree with this statement?  Explain.

4.      Themes:  Information is power. Do you agree with this statement?  “’Information,’ Grandpa Smedry said.  ‘That’s the real power in this world….  Librarians control the information in this city…  They control what gets read, what gets seen, and what gets learned.  Because of that, they have power’” (102). 

a.      Do you agree that whomever controls information has power in a society?  Explain. 

b.     Can you think of some historical examples or current examples?  Talk this over with your family.

5.      Themes:  Ignorance enslaves people.  “Hushlanders are enslaved!  They’re being kept in ignorance, living only with the most primitive technologies!” (113).   How does being kept in ignorance and with limited technology enslave a people?  (Any real life examples?)

6.      Themes:  Cultural humility.  Alcatraz has a startling revelation, “I was coming to realize something very difficult.  I was slowly accepting that the way I did things—the way my people did things- might not actually be the best way,” (Sanderson, 114).   Do you think if you had this realization that your family or country or  religious or ethnic group might not be doing things “the best way” that you’d feel uncomfortable like Alcatraz does?  Explain. 

7.      Philosophy:  Read a summary of Plato and the Allegory of the Cave.  Discuss this with a parent.  Write a summary in your own words.  How does this apply to this book??

8.  Themes: Do you agree with Bastille that there are somethings about yourself that you can’t change by wanting them (177-178)?  Explain.

9.  Theme:  “Power is nothing without control” (208).  How is this a theme of the book?

10.      What important realizations does Alcatraz have in chapter 15?

11. Allusion: Chp 16 begins with a reference to Werner Heisenberg who is considered one of the pioneers of quantum physics and the uncertainty principle. Look this up and then explain the joke in this chapter.

12. Narrative aside: Are you a reader who skips to the end, which the narrator says “violate[s] every holy and honorable storytelling principle known to man” and which “thereby throw[s] the universe into chaos….” (225). Explain why o you skip or don’t skip to the end. Also explain your reaction to this narrative aside.

13. Themes: Chp 16 Alcatraz explains that “my failure with the dinosaurs had come from relying on misinformation” (235). Today, people frequently get their information from social media or subscribe to news sources that confirm what they already believe about the world or listen to figures whose job it is to entertain not inform. What kinds of problems does relying on misinformation cause in our own society?

14. Relationships: Chp 16 Bastille is perpetually annoyed by Alcatraz. Why?

15. Chp 18 What is unexpected about Alcatraz’s list of objects that give a person pleasure on pg. 250? Why include that odd item? What does it reveal about Alcatraz or what he things about human kind?

16. Chp 18 Alcatraz experiences a sense of belonging and clear identity. He exclaims, “This is what I ws meant to be, I thought. This was what I was always meant to be.”

17. Allusion: Chp 19 starts off with an allusion to the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, in which the protagonist, named Atticus is a white lawyer defending an unjustly accused black man in the American South. Read a summary of To Kill a Mockingbird. Do you think the author really thinks that novel is boring? What is he trying to say or reveal about Alcatraz?

18. Theme: Chp 19 Why are the translator lens the true power instead of lenses that destroy? (266)

19. Books in schools: The author makes fun of the kinds of books that teachers choose for students to read “A few unfortunate kids ended up with meaningful books about dysfunctional families” (269). Does Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians, even though it is a “fun” fantasy book have meaningful themes?

20. Opinion: Was it ethical for his parents to give him up so he could become a spy?

21. How does Alcatraz feel about the revelation of who is mother is? How would you feel in his shoes? What do you think about this plot twist? (279)

22. Theme How does Grandpa Smedry’s argument in this passage relate to the theme of unreliable or inaccurate information causes people to make poor choices? “Information, lad! It’s all about information. You thought those families were going to give you up, so you acted first. You made them get rid of you. But you had bad information” (281).

23. Theme: Read the first paragraph on pg 282 about seeing. What is the explicit theme Grandpa is stating here?

24. Theme: What is the theme about families which is explicitly stated on pg 283?

25. Character development: how has Alcatraz changed by the end of the book?

You may also choose from the Reading and Activity Guide questions at the back of the book. There you’ll find good questions about:

• Heroism

• Knowledge, learning and thinking

• opposites

[1] Notice how we include the reference for the quote:  (Author’s Last Name Page Number).  After the first time one quotes from a book one can omit the author’s name just include the page number (page number).

Created by Lisa Clark-Burnell