Tuck Everlasting

By Natalie Babbitt

Chapter 1

Draw a picture of what you think Treegap looks like.

Chapter 2

Create a character map of Mae Tuck

Is unhappy working as a Servant, but she is a good

person

Mice help her prepare For the ball.

Cinderella

Lives with her evil step mother and step sisters.

Has a fairy god mother

Meets the prince, loses her Glass slipper

Chapter 3

What books have you enjoyed reading? Why?

Were you able to make a connection to the text?

Write about how relating to a book can help you understand the book better.

Have you ever felt like Winnie does- like running away? Describe how you felt and how your feelings were similar to Winnie’s.

Chapter 4

Foreshadowing is another author’s craft. An author uses foreshadowing to give readers a hint about something that will happen later in the story. This creates tension in the reader’s mind and makes the story more exciting. It also helps tie the story together by relating early events to later ones. (pg. 18?)

Whom or what do you think the man in the yellow suit is searching for?

After you read Chapter 4

Imagery is language that an author uses to illustrate with words the characters and events in a book. Imagery can include both descriptive language and figurative language.

Figurative language can consist of similes and metaphors.

Can you find an example of a simile in the text?

Chapter 5 Winnie Foster thinks

about running away.

She goes into the wood.

Winnie tells her troubles to the toad.

The stranger talks to Winnie. He is looking for a family.

He wears a yellow suit and is “tall and narrow.”

A stranger stops at the Foster gate, and he is looking for someone.

Winnie meets Jesse, Mae, and Miles in the wood.The Wood Tuck family

has looked the same for 87 years.

Mae Tuck sets out to meet her two sons, Jesse and Miles.

Mae has a music box.

Owned by the FostersAsh tree

and spring at center

Chapter 6

After reading Chapter 7

What do you think about the Tuck’s story? Back up your thinking with examples from the book.

If you were Winnie, would you believe them? Why or why not?

List some parts of Chapter 7 that are fantasy, and others that are realistic.

Chapter 8-9

Character development- It is important not only to look at what a character is like at a particular moment in time, but also to watch how the character changes over time.

Have you noticed any changes in Winnie since the beginning of the book? For what reasons has she changed?

Chapters 8-9

Winnie is constantly watched and protected by her family. She’s tired of it and wants to do something interesting. She’s determined to run away.

Ch. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Winnie realizes she’s afraid to run away, but she has enough courage to sneak off into the wood by herself.

After being kidnapped, Winnie feels frightened and helpless.

Chapters 10-11

Comparing and contrasting is a comprehension skill that you can use to understand the story, including setting, theme, and characters. By noticing similarities and differences between characters, you can understand what a character is doing and, more importantly, why the character is doing it.

Develop a compare-contrast chart for Winnie and the Tucks home.

Chapters 10-11

Compare and contrast Winnie’s home and the Tucks home.

How does Winnie feel now?

Chapters 10-11

Winnie’s home lifeVery organizedLots of rulesUncomfortable way

of lifeLimitedIn a lonely spot

Tuck’s home lifeVery little rulesVery dirty houseComfortableFree to do almost

anythingfriendly

Chapters 12-13

One theme is the idea that life is a natural cycle. Images of a wheel, hub, or circle recur throughout the text.

Make inter-textual connections to other books that you have read or movies that you have seen that employ recurring ideas or images.

Chapters 12-13 Story Themes

A story theme is repeated images, a major idea, or the point of the story.

Do you notice any familiar or recurring images in Chapters 12 and 13?

Where in the book have you seen them before?

How are they related to the theme of the story?

Two recurring elements are:

(Ch. 12-13)Water-

The water from the spring that gave the Tucks eternal life

Tuck uses the ever-flowing water of the pond to explain to Winnie about the wheel of life.

Toads/Frogs--Winnie spoke to a toad outside the fence of her

own house,- She noticed the loud croaking of frogs at the

Tucks’ pond when she was in the boat with Tuck and then with Miles.

Chapters 14-15

Complete 2 quadrants in your notebook for each chapter.

After reading Chapters 16-17

Literary Elements:Beginning (Setting, Main characters and

problem are introduced)Middle (the characters struggle to solve

the problem)Climax- (events lead up to a climax which

is the most exciting point in the story)End (the problem is solved/ resolved)

What is the central problem or conflict in Tuck Everlasting?

After reading Chapters 18-19

Complete 2 quadrants for each chapter.Use strategies that you have not used

thus far in the book.

After reading Chapters 20-21A story graph helps students track changes in the

story from beginning to end.

Very happy

Happy

Not happy

Beginning Middle End

Little Red Riding Hood leaves for Grandma’s House.

The wolf jumps out and threatens to eat her.

She gets to the house and goes over to Grandma’s bed.

The woodcutter kills the wolf.

She’s glad to be safe, but her grandmother is gone.

Story graph

Winnie’s feelings change over timeHer situation changes over timeYour feelings about the story may

have changed over time.

Now it is your turn to create a story graph for Tuck Everlasting. You can choose which situation or character changes.

After reading Chapters 22-23A theme that emerges throughout Tuck

Everlasting is the complex relationship between being responsible and following the law. What are laws? How do the people who live in a

community benefit when everyone knows and follows the laws?

How important is your responsibility to do what you think is right? How important is your responsibility to obey the law?

When your own sense of right and wrong goes against what the law says, what should you do? Why?

Chapters 23-24 (Cont.)

Predict whether you think Winnie will go back to the spring when she is 17 , and why?

Why do you think she should drink the water?

Why do you think she should not drink the water.

After reading Chapter 24

What is “Point of view”?Stories can be written in first-person or

third-person point of view. If the character, or narrator, uses the

words I and me to refer to himself or herself, the story is written in first-person.

If the narrator is outside the story and uses words such as he, she, him, and her to refer to the characters in the story, the story is written in 3rd person.

First person Point of View--I clasped my trembling hands thankfully.

-One by one I kissed them back.

Third Person Point of View-Winnie clasped her

trembling hands thankfully.

One by one she kissed them back.

What point of view did Natalie Babbitt use to write Tuck Everlasting?In some stories the third-person narrator can

describe the thoughts and feelings of only one character. In other stories the third-person narrator can describe the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters.

Why do you think that the author chose to limit the descriptions to the thoughts and feelings of Winnie.

How did this affect the way readers experience the story?

How would the story be different if the narrator described only Jesse’s thoughts and feelings instead of Winnie’s?

After reading Chapter 25

Do you think the central problem or conflict in the story has been resolved? The man in the yellow suit is dead, Mae Tuck

has been rescued from prison, so the secret of the spring is safe.

What questions still remain unanswered?Turn and talk with your partner.

Epilogue

An epilogue is a short section at the end of a book that often explains what happens to characters after the main action of the story is over.

What clues does the author use to reveal when the events of the epilogue take place?

How does the author use the gravestone to give details about what happened to Winnie?