Flush

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.

“How Do the Underwoods Compare to Real Activists?”

After reading Flush and considering what the characters are willing to go through to protect the environment, students create presentations comparing and contrasting these characters with a real-world environmental activist (or activists) of their choice.

For this activity, you will create a presentation that uses words and images to convey similarities and differences between a real-world environmental activist and the characters in Flush.

• Make a three-column chart. In the first column, list the main actions that Noah and Paine take to protect the environment. In the second column, make notes about the motives for their actions and the internal struggles they face as they decide what is the right thing to do. Finally, in the third column, make some notes about how the choices that Noah and Paine make impact them, others, and the environment. Be sure to list page numbers for any evidence that supports your interpretations of what Noah and Paine feel and how they affect others around them.
• Use reputable online sources to research an environmental activist (or a group of activists) who has undertaken some significant action to defend the environment. Keep track of your sources, because you will need this information later.
• Create a presentation that compares and contrasts the real-world activist(s) with Noah and Paine. Use text and images to show what is similar about their motives, actions, and impact on the world around them. Then, use text and images to show what differs in these areas. Be sure to cite the sources of all borrowed images, ideas, and words.

Teaching Suggestion: Some stories about activists and their actions will be inappropriate for a classroom setting. If you intend to have students share their work, consider offering them advance guidelines about acceptable content. Since there are plenty of activists for students to choose from, you might also ask each student to choose a different real-life person from a pre-approved list as the focus of their presentation. This project can be completed in less class time if students work with partners or in small groups. You can make the project more challenging for advanced students by asking that evidence drawn from Flush be in the form of properly cited quotations, along with commentary explaining each quote’s relevance.

Differentiation Suggestion: Students with attentional or executive function issues may benefit from having clear deadlines and receiving feedback for each step of the activity rather than submitting the project without intermediary check-ins. Because the activity requires students to skim a large amount of text in Hiaasen’s book, consider allowing English language learners, students with dyslexia, and those with attentional or executive function difficulties to work with a partner or small group to gather evidence for the first bulleted part of the activity. As the final bulleted item in the activity requires comparison and contrast, which can be confusing for students who struggle with abstract thought and organization, this item is worded to offer a clear cue about how to structure the presentation. Consider explicitly drawing students’ attention to the wording of this final bullet point.