Grief, Thought, & Appreciation: Re-examining Our Values Amid Terrorism Through The Giver

Abstract

Teachable moments" are not always pleasant experiences. Sometimes we are jolted into knowledge or thoughts we might rather avoid. This is the story of a "teachable moment" in a young adult literature class as students processed complex emotions and thoughts surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks after reading striking parallels in Lois Lowry's The Giver.

Probing Text Complexity: Reflectings on Reading The Giver as Pre-teens, Teens, and Adults

“…Pardon the cliché, but time does indeed fly, and 10 years have passed since Angie and two students from her young adult literature course wrote an article about the power of reading The Giver at the time of the September 11 terrorist attacks (Johnson, Kleismit, & Williams, 2002). Now another pattern in reading The Giver has emerged from the written responses-1½-2 pages about their thoughts, feelings, and the craft of the novel-of two undergraduate YA literature classes.…”