Touching Spirit Bear
Literature Unit
Amy Knight
St. Michael’s
College
GSL 520
5/07 –Summer
Semester
Aknight@bsdvt.org
What is Touching Spirit Bear
about?
Click on the book to read a
brief synopsis.
www.rebeccacauill.org
Aknight@bsdvt.org
Cole Matthews is angry. Angry, defiant, smug--in short, a bully.
His anger has taken him too far this time, though. After beating
up a ninth-grade classmate to the point of brain damage, Cole is
facing a prison sentence. But then a Tlingit Indian parole officer
named Garvey enters his life, offering an alternative called
Circle Justice, based on Native American traditions, in which
victim, offender, and community all work together to find a
healing solution. Privately, Cole sneers at the concept, but he's
no fool--if it gets him out of prison, he'll do anything. Ultimately,
Cole ends up banished for one year to a remote Alaskan island,
where his arrogance sets him directly in the path of a
mysterious, legendary white bear. Mauled almost to death, Cole
awaits his fate and begins the transition from anger to humility.
Aknight@bsdvt.org
Literature Activities
• To make this story come alive, we are going to engage in a lot
of fun, hands-on activities that will exercise both our minds
and our bodies.
• We will play games, go on a web quest, build totem poles, and
much, much more!
• Today, I would like you to briefly read about a few of our VERY FUN
upcoming activities and catch a quick glimpse of one of the
websites you will be visiting in the upcoming weeks.
Aknight@bsdvt.org
Touching Spirit Bear Scavenger
Hunt
• We are going to begin this literature unit by embarking on a
Touching Spirit Bear Scavenger Hunt!
• This is a web quest that was developed by a teacher in Burlington,
Wisconsin. We are going to “tweak” it a little because some of the
websites are no longer up on the web.
• The websites we visit will help us to develop background knowledge
that will be useful to us as we read Touching Spirit Bear.
Aknight@bsdvt.org
Scavenger Hunt Questions
•
Mr. Mikaelsen offers EDUCATORS some TIPS to help students write
better. One of his suggestions is to “write about things that give you
strong __________ __________. (2 words)
•
To learn more ABOUT BEN you can read AN INTERVIEW posted on his
site. In it he says it takes about how long to write a book?
HINT: Look for the words in ALL CAPS on the website – they’ll help
you find the answers!
Aknight@bsdvt.org
Vocabulary Dartboard
•
We will choose five words from each chapter that we think would be
valuable words to know the meanings of.
•
We will record the words and their meanings on a vocabulary chart
and we will write them on rubberbands.
•
Once a week, we will play a game testing your knowledge of the
words.
Aknight@bsdvt.org
Vocabulary Game (Cont.)
•
You will pull a rubberband out of an envelope. If you know the
meaning of the word(s) on the rubberband and can tell us what part of
speech it is, you get a chance to shoot it at the dartboard.
•
If your rubberband hits the correct part of speech, you win a point.
•
If you don’t know the meaning, you can’t shoot.
Aknight@bsdvt.org
Aknight@bsdvt.org
VERB
ADVERB
Aknight@bsdvt.org
NOUN
ADJECTIVE
Are you excited?
•As I stated in the first slide, this is just a quick glimpse of the fun
activities we will engage in as we read Touching Spirit Bear.
•Come to class each day with your book and a sense of adventure!
Aknight@bsdvt.org