My Life as a Book

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.

Your “Life as a Book”

In this activity, students will brainstorm and create their own ideas about how they’d structure their own “Life as a Book.”

For this assignment, your creativity and imagination will come into play as you reflect on what type of book your life would make. Derek realizes the truth of Human Lives as Stories, and he feels that if his life were made into a book, he would want it to be full of adventure. You will not write a book (unless you later decide to do so); instead, you will plan it out in detail.

• As you plan your life book, consider genre, plot, characters, setting, and symbols.
• Create a diagram or chart that indicates each of the above.
• In creating your diagram or chart, include a section that relates back to the novel’s theme Human Lives as Stories. You should also include your own themes here.
• You will present your planned life book to the class.
• You can choose to include a sample of what your book would be like visually instead of in writing, but this is not required.

As time allows, you might choose to share some or all of the ideas for your book with the class.

Teaching Suggestion: One of the novel’s central themes is Human Lives as Stories. Encourage students to think about Derek’s character arc and what he learned over the summer as well as how he learned it. Students can also consider the metaliterary nature of the novel’s title (and the coinciding concept of Derek narrating his own “life as a book”), as well as how Derek turns his life into a book through his illustrations.

Differentiation Suggestion: Kinesthetic learners can choose to create a 3-minute skit to showcase their chosen genre, plot, characters, setting, symbols, and themes and present it either for a small group or the class.

Paired Resource Extension:

The sculpture The Garden of Eden by Jim Dine is an autobiographical piece. It showcases a highly unconventional medium for expressing one’s life story.

• Examine the sculpture. What do you notice about it?
• How do you think this sculpture serves as an autobiography for an artist like Jim Dine, who creates sculptures out of old objects and paint?
• What other ways can you think of that people can express the theme of Human Lives as Stories?

Teaching Suggestion: This activity can be completed either as a class discussion or as a brief in-class assignment.