The Leavers

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.

“Symbols and Self”

In this activity, students will use imagery, symbols, and motifs from the story to create an art piece that captures the main characters’ intertwining journeys toward selfhood.

The novel traces the intertwining journeys of both Polly and Daniel as they search for and find themselves. Using imagery, symbols, and motifs from the novel, create an art piece that captures their interconnected journeys toward selfhood. Then, in an artist’s statement, explain what these symbols, motifs, and images represent in terms of the characters’ journey and how you used them strategically in your art piece.

Your artwork and statement may be publicly displayed and shared with the class.

Teaching Suggestion: Students may benefit from brainstorming a list of possible images, motifs, and symbols for inspiration. Students may also benefit from defining or limiting the term “art piece” before beginning. To showcase student work, formal presentation or physical or digital display may work.

Differentiation Suggestion: For students with organizational or executive functioning differences, graphic organizers or step guides may be beneficial. For multilingual learners, preselected and/or prehighlighted passages related to their motifs and symbols may help with time management and ease transition from comprehension to analysis. To include more learning styles and cultures, consider allowing options for group work, visual or performance art forms such as video or storyboarding, or oral response forms such as monologue.

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Ko explores the elusiveness of identity through various symbols and motifs such as language, water, music, and walls. Choose one symbol and one related character for the focus of this essay.

• What does this symbol or motif represent to the character, and how does it relate to the character’s ability to find their identity? (topic sentence)
• Explain where this symbol or motif appears in the story and how it brings about self-awareness in the character.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explain what this symbol or motif might illustrate about the process of self-discovery.

2. Several characters have traumatic experiences that change their relationship with themselves and others. Choose one character for the focus of this essay.

• What impact does trauma have on the character’s relationship with themselves and others? (topic sentence)
• Explain how a traumatic event has changed this character’s sense of self and how this attitude toward the self manifests in their behaviors and relationships.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explain what the stakes of trauma are and what message the author might suggest about how trauma factors into immigrant experiences.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. A central question of the novel is motherhood and its impact on identity and agency. Consider Polly, Kay, and other mother figures in the novel. What does it mean to them to be a mother? What struggles do mothers face? What expectations exist, and how do they change an individual? What are the stakes of failing to live up to the expectations?

2. Examine the parallels between the immigrant experiences of Daniel and his mother. What might Ko be saying about immigrant experiences through these parallels? How does each character dream, adapt, survive, and find meaning? What struggles and triumphs do they face? What connections might there be between the systems that deport immigrants and those that take children into protective care or adoption?

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. From an early age, what does Deming’s mother connect with a lack of schooling?

A) The prospect of freedom from all constraints

B) The prospect of finding new pathways

C) The prospect of menial labor and premature aging

D) The prospect of losing one’s family

2. What is at the core of Daniel’s fear of people noticing his shoes at the first gig with Roland?

A) Daniel fears people will find out how poor he is.

B) Daniel fears they will be considered “Asian.”

C) Daniel fears he is too underdressed for the music executive.

D) Daniel fears being exposed as a fraud despite being born in New York City.

3. Why does Deming abandon his plan to run away to Florida?

A) He does not want to skip school in case his mother comes to get him.

B) He does not want Michael to miss his mother the way he misses his own.

C) He does not speak enough English to get help if needed.

D) He does not want to be caught stealing money for the bus.

4. What might the blue button Deming keeps with him symbolize?

A) His losses and fears shine like the button.

B) He has a desire to never abandon anything, not even one button.

C) It is a connection to his mother, though it is lost like the button.

D) It represents his hope that his mother will come back for the button.

5. Why does Daniel compare his life with his mother, Leon, and Vivian to a hidden benign tumor or parasitic twin?

A) Kay and Peter insist that he is sick, but he is really grieving.

B) Peter and Kay want him to talk about his past, but he is afraid what they will think.

C) His past life is a source of shame and disgust to him.

D) His past life is hidden deep inside him, and only he can feel its presence.

6. How does Peilan view motherhood as a young factory worker in China?

A) Motherhood is her life’s goal.

B) Motherhood is her demise.

C) Motherhood is fine for some people, but not her.

D) Motherhood is foreign to her, since her mother died during childbirth.

7. How does Polly view motherhood once Deming returns from China?

A) Motherhood is more important than work.

B) Motherhood is her joy and duty.

C) Motherhood is everything she ever wanted.

D) Motherhood is a sacrifice no one appreciates.

8. What is at the core of Daniel’s self-sabotaging choices?

A) Desire to escape others’ expectations for him

B) A lack of self-control

C) A fear of the future

D) Impulsivity he inherited from his mother

9. Why does Daniel feel it is treacherous for Leon to call his mother “rich people”?

A) It implies that she is a class enemy.

B) It implies that she is too good for them.

C) It implies that he will not be accepted by her husband.

D) It implies that she is someone other than the woman they knew.

10. Why will Daniel’s mother not return his phone calls or answer him?

A) Her phone was stolen on the train to Beijing.

B) She is afraid of a confrontation with him about circumstances.

C) Yong is screening her calls because he fears she will go to New York.

D) She left her phone in the hotel room during the conference.

11. What does Daniel’s mother’s deportation mirror in the story?

A) Daniel’s experience with Kay and Peter

B) Angel’s adoption

C) Deming’s abandonment and adoption

D) Roland’s creative control of their music project

12. What does Daniel finally realize on his birthday?

A) How little he has accomplished on his own

B) How much he misses New York

C) How much he misses his adoptive parents

D) How many people love and accept him

13. How are Daniel’s mom and Kay and Peter similar?

A) They project their ambitions onto Daniel.

B) They all see Daniel as a person who needs help.

C) They are all hurt by Daniel’s gambling.

D) They all reject Daniel for one reason or another.

14. What does Polly mean when she says, “The water was Minjiang, New York, Fuzhou, but most of all it was you.”

A) She refers to the hope she held on to in order to survive Ardsleyville.

B) She refers to the hardships she endured and survived.

C) She refers to the grounding substance that connects her to her truest self.

D) She refers to the remorse she feels for what has happened between them.

15. Why does Daniel keep playing gigs even though it makes him feel vulnerable?

A) He hopes to prove to Kay and Peter he can succeed as a musician.

B) He hopes to take revenge on Roland for cutting him out of Psychic Hearts.

C) He is honoring a promise he made to his mother to try his hardest.

D) He is showing himself to the world for the first time.

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. Compare Daniel and Angel’s adoption experiences. Why might the author want to show two different versions of an adoptive situation?

2. What message might one find behind Ko’s choice to end with Daniel back in New York instead of leaving him teaching on a work visa in China?