Teaching Dragonwings

Instructions for You

Objective: A fundamental topic of literature is story elements, and this book is an excellent one to use to discuss them because it’s full and meaty like a good steak (or mushroom burger). It’s got everything in abundance: characters, setting, plot, themes, and symbolism.

You’ll start with a nice appetizer of story elements: what they are, examples, why they’re important, and ways they’re used to further the story. This is followed by a hearty main course of students working in groups to get into Dragonwings and search for examples of these elements. For dessert, the groups will design and make games of story elements to be played by other groups.

Step 1 is all about story elements and will take a day to go through in depth or ten minutes to review if you’ve already discussed this topic. Step 2 will take a day for groups to dig into the story and pull out examples for each of the story elements. Steps 3 and 4 are for making the game and will take two days. The last part, Steps 5 and 6, will take about 25 minutes as each group plays another group’s game and fills out a brief survey afterward. Altogether, expect to use 3.5 to 4.5 class periods.

Materials Needed: Pen and paper, Dragonwings Story Elements Worksheet (one per group of three students), computer and projector, computers and printer for making game cards (optional), miscellaneous items for making a game (i.e., cardboard, colored paper, scissors, tape), optionally, a Game Survey (included in instructions)

Step 1: Take your students through the land of story elements. (AKA, go through and explain the slides of this presentation to the munchkins.) They’ll need to take notes as you go along, jotting down vocab (listed below), definitions, and examples. The links below are Shmoop definitions if they need more info.

• The Elements of Fiction (title)
• Setting
• Round Characters
• Flat Characters
• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Pause in the slide show to break down the 13 main characters into major (the first six on the list) and minor (the latter seven).
• Characterization (including direct, indirect)
• Plot (including exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution (or dénouement), conflict, types of conflict) [FYI, Freytag’s Pyramid is a great way to discuss plot.]
• Point of View (including omniscient, limited omniscient, first person)
• Theme
• Symbolism

Step 2: In groups of three, have students use the book and their bodacious brains to fill in the two charts of the Dragonwings Story Elements Worksheet. (Characters are given a separate chart because there’s so much information on them.) They should take turns being the scribe.

Step 3: Groups will design their games. First, they’ll choose whether to do a card game or a board game. There are some ideas below that they can copy or use as a starting place. Remind them to keep it semi-simple since they don’t have forever to design and build it. Both kinds of games will use questions that players will have to answer.

Card games could be modeled on:

• Go Fish (pairs are the question and answer)
• Memory (pairs are the question and answer)
• Points-based games or trivia games

If they're considering a board game format, they could use these models:

• Questions on the board
• Questions on the cards

For the second step in game design, have them draft their game questions using the information they found in Step 2. Each group will need 46 questions total, broken down like this:

• Setting—Two questions
  • Example: When comparing the Middle Kingdom with the land of the demons, which is more affluent?
• Characters—Three questions for each major character and one question for each minor character. (They’ll need to include a variety of info from their character charts.) (25 questions total)
  • Example: Which of these characters is not flat? A) Windrider; B) Mother; C) Grandmother; D) White Deer
• Plot—Two questions for each of the five main components of plot (Ten total plot questions)
  • Example #1: Which of these is not part of the exposition? A) The story is in China. B) The year is 1903. C) There’s trouble with Black Dog. D) Moon Shadow is a main character.
  • Example #2: Which of these is the climax? A) Windrider goes to get mother. B) etc.
• Conflict—One question on the type of conflict
• Point of View—One question
• Theme—Three questions
  • Example: Which of these is not a theme in the story? A) Family can be made. B) Friends come and go. C) etc.
• Symbols—Four questions
  • Questions can be multiple choice (with three or four choices) or fill in the blank (if the answer is one word or a name).
  • Example (multiple choice): Which of these is an example of direct characterization? A) He was fat and old. B) He said, "I work too hard." C) He thought it was time to retire. D) His clothes were getting too small again.
  • Example (fill in the blank): Who is the protagonist in this story?

Third, they’ll write the directions on how to play and include the answers either on a separate answer sheet or on the cards. Ahem: this needs to be a game of skills (How much do you know?) and not chance (Can you roll a high number?).

Before they leave class today, have them discuss with their groups what items they need to make their game (i.e. poster board, colored paper, dice, etc.) and decide who’s bringing what to the next class.

Step 4: Groups make their games. Yippie!

• Make the cards or the game board and pieces.
• Try the game out to make sure the directions work. Make modifications as needed.
• Neatly rewrite or type directions.
• Give the game a name.

Step 5: Have groups switch (or randomly assign) games to play. They’ll need to read the directions first.

Step 6: Have students give feedback for the game they played and give their feedback to the game makers. Here are some suggested sentence starters:

• We especially liked…
• One way we thought you could improve your game…
• The game directions were… (easy to understand? missing steps? didn’t make sense?)
• We found (no/some) mistakes. (Circle "no" or "some." If "some," write what they were.)

Instructions for Your Students

A fundamental topic of literature is story elements, and this book is an excellent one to use to discuss them because it’s full and meaty like a good steak (or mushroom burger). It’s got everything in abundance: characters, setting, plot, themes, and symbolism.

You’ll start with a nice appetizer of story elements: what they are, examples, why they’re important, and ways they’re used to further the story. This is followed by a hearty main course of working in groups to get into Dragonwings and search for examples of the elements. For dessert, your group will design and make a game of story elements to be played by another group.

Step 1: Your teacher will take you through the land of story elements. You’ll take notes, jotting down vocab (listed below), definitions, and examples. The links below are Shmoop definitions, if you need more information:

• The Elements of Fiction (title)
• Setting
• Round Characters
• Flat Characters
• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Pause in the slide show to break down the 13 main characters into major (the first six on the list) and minor (the latter seven).
• Characterization (including direct, indirect)
• Plot (including exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution (or dénouement), conflict, types of conflict
• Point of View (including omniscient, limited omniscient, first person)
• Theme 
• Symbolism

Step 2: You and two others will form a group and use the book and your bodacious brains to fill in the two charts of the Dragonwings Story Elements Worksheet. Take turns being the scribe. (You’ll stay in your groups for the rest of this activity.)

Step 3: Design your game. First, choose whether to do a card game or a board game. There are some ideas below that you can copy or use as a starting place. Keep it semi-simple; you don’t have forever to design and build it. Both kinds of games will use questions that players will have to answer.

Card games could be modeled on:

• Go Fish (pairs are the question and answer)
• Memory (pairs are the question and answer)
• Points-based games or trivia games

If considering a board game format, use these models:

• Questions on the board
• Questions on the cards

For the second step in game design, draft game questions using the information you found in Step 2. Each group will need 46 questions total, broken down like this:

• Setting—Two questions
  • Example: When comparing the Middle Kingdom with the land of the demons, which is more affluent?
• Characters—Three questions for each major character and one question for each minor character. (They’ll need to include a variety of info from their character charts.) (25 questions total)
  • Example: Which of these characters is not flat? A) Windrider; B) Mother; C) Grandmother; D) White Deer
• Plot—Two questions for each of the five main components of plot (Ten total plot questions)
  • Example #1: Which of these is not part of the exposition? A) The story is in China. B) The year is 1903. C) There’s trouble with Black Dog. D) Moon Shadow is a main character.
  • Example #2: Which of these is the climax? A) Windrider goes to get mother. B) etc.
• Conflict—One question on the type of conflict
• Point of View—One question
• Theme—Three questions
  • Example: Which of these is not a theme in the story? A) Family can be made. B) Friends come and go. C) etc.
• Symbols—Four questions
  • Questions can be multiple choice (with three or four choices) or fill in the blank (if the answer is one word or a name).
  • Example (multiple choice): Which of these is an example of direct characterization? A) He was fat and old. B) He said, "I work too hard." C) He thought it was time to retire. D) His clothes were getting too small again.
  • Example (fill in the blank): Who is the protagonist in this story?

Third, write the directions on how to play and include the answers either on a separate answer sheet or on the cards. Ahem: this needs to be a game of skills (How much do you know?) and not chance (Can you roll a high number?).

Before you leave class today, discuss with your group what items are needed to make the game (i.e. poster board, colored paper, dice, etc.) and decide who’s bringing what to the next class.

Step 4: Make your game:

• Make the cards, game board, pieces, etc.
• Try the game out to make sure the directions work. Make modifications as needed.
• Neatly rewrite or type directions.
• Give your game a name.

Step 5: Get someone else’s game to play. Read the directions first.

Step 6: Give feedback to the game makers—your teacher will provide you with prompts for polite game discourse.