City of the Beasts

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“César’s Pro-Con List”

In this activity, students will demonstrate their understanding of characterization in City of the Beasts by compiling a pro-con list related to Nadia’s travel to the Himalayas in the book’s sequel.

In City of the Beasts, Alex and Nadia develop a powerful friendship over a relatively short period of time. Because of their relationship, in the book’s sequel (Kingdom of the Golden Dragon), Alex invites Nadia to accompany him and Kate to the Himalayas for a story Kate is working on there. If you were Nadia’s father, César, would you allow her to go? What parts of the adventure in the Amazon would you consider as you made your decision? Using evidence from City of the Beasts, compile a pro-con list of reasons that argue for and against allowing Nadia to accompany the Colds on their upcoming Himalayan trip.

Create Your List

Your pro-con list should:

• Contain text-based reasons both for and against allowing Nadia to go:

o You should have at least 10 total items in your list.

o Your list may be unbalanced between pros and cons, as long as you do not leave out any significant reasons on either side.

• Demonstrate a clear understanding of César’s personality and perspective.
• Demonstrate a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses in Alex’s and Kate’s characters.

Share and Reflect

When you finish your list, choose two other students to share your work with. When you are looking over the choices they have made for their lists, take note of anything that differs from your own work. Then, answer the following questions:

1. What differences did you notice between your own work and your peers’ work?

2. Were any items in the opposite category from the one you chose—a pro that you thought was a con, for instance? If so, why do you think your peer sees this item differently from the way you see it?

3. What did your peers include that you left out of your own list? What were they trying to demonstrate with these items? Were they successful?

4. Now that you have seen others’ work on the same activity, is there anything you would change about your list?

Teaching Suggestion: Although the activity itself is relatively straightforward, students will probably benefit from some preparatory discussion of what it means to demonstrate their understanding of César’s perspective and personality. For instance, you might remind them that César might see certain things as pros or cons that they personally see another way; however, César has a different worldview from their own, so they should try to reflect his feelings and beliefs, not their own.

Students may be tempted to change their own work after comparing it to their peers’ work during the Share and Reflect section of the activity. It may be prudent to let them know ahead of time that the way to address any shortcomings in their work is not by changing their initial responses but by using the Reflect questions to demonstrate that they can apply their experience with their peers’ work to think critically about their own work.

Differentiation Suggestion: English language learners, students with dyslexia, and students with attentional or executive function differences may struggle to process enough text to select the best ideas for their lists. These students may benefit from working in small groups or with partners to sort through the available evidence. Students who struggle with abstractions may initially have a hard time adopting César’s perspective on Kate and Alex and their actions—you might prepare in advance one or two examples of details of plot or characterization related to Kate or Alex and then model your own thinking about how César would react to these.