Haroun and the Sea of Stories Lesson Plan

The Power of Naming

Kind of Activity:

Group Work

Objective:

To use information about a nonfiction podcast episode as a lens through which to evaluate and understand the text

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.9, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.1.D

Structure:

Play a clip from the “Colors” episode of the Radiolab podcast from 45:45-1:03:34.

Split the class into small groups. Each group should discuss the following quote from Chapter 4 of Haroun and the Sea of Stories: “To give a thing a name, a label, a handle; to rescue it from anonymity, to pluck it out of the Place of Namelessness, in short to identify it—well, that’s a way of bringing the said thing into being.”...