I find it very important to have the students work hard at connecting with the novel and the characters.
In order to do this, I like the lesson of getting some sort of ideas going for the students before we even read the book.
The novel I am talking about it called, "Touching Spirit Bear."
In order to activate knowledge for the students before they start reading this, I do an activity with doing a little reasearch on what a totem is and how it is represented.
I give the students a handout on what the all of the items on a totem pole could represent. I let them read through that and we discuss the meanings of the animals or the creatures they pick. They have to choose one animal/creature off of the list that I gave them; it should be the one that they most relate to and identifies them the best way possible.
I then have smaller paper sacks for each student. They aren't allowed to use a scissors, they are to rip the paper and make it lay as a flat piece of paper on their desks, no longer a sack, but a paper. We then smash the paper a lot until it is no longer crispy and it is smooth. We then talk about how the Native Americans had nothing to write on, but the hide of the buffalo; the wrinkled, smooth paper in front of them represents the hide.
They then have to draw their totem on this "hide."
Once they are all done, we tape the totems to the wall one on top of the other, to represent a real totem.
This is a great way to get the students to connect and get into the novel before we even begin. It not only gives a good representation of the novel itself, but the totem comes up in the novel and we then can relate to our own totem pole in our classroom.
