Haroun and the Sea of Stories

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.

“Chart the Impact of Fiction”

In this activity, students will demonstrate their understanding of the theme of The Importance of Stories by creating a chart linking quotes from the novel to evidence from their research into novels that changed people’s thinking.

One of the main claims that Haroun and the Sea of Stories makes is that fictional stories have the capacity to change people’s lives. In this activity, you will gather four quotes from the novel that support this idea. Then, you will do some research into novels that critics and historians agree have made a substantial impact on the way people think. Finally, you will create a chart that links the quotes from Haroun to the novels you have researched.

1. Gather Your Quotes

• Choose four quotes, from four different places in the novel. Remember that quotes are not the same thing as dialogue—your quotes can be the narrator’s words, too.
• “Prune” your quotes, using ellipses, so that they are as short as they can be and still express a complete idea that supports the power of made-up stories.
• Be sure to record page numbers for each quote.

2. Research the Novels

• Do online research into the novels on the list. Look for information about how each impacted society.
• Choose four of the novels to use as examples. For each of the Haroun quotes you have chosen, you are looking for a novel whose impact illustrates that particular quote.

3. Create Your Chart

• Your chart should have three columns and four rows. The rows should be wide enough for several lines of text.
• Put your quotes in the far left column, one in each of the four rows. Cite a page number, in parentheses, for each quote.
• In the middle column, put the titles of the novels that you have chosen to illustrate each quote.
• In the far right column, briefly explain how each novel’s social impact demonstrates that the quote from Haroun is accurate.

Novels to Research:

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
• Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Teaching Suggestion: You can decrease the time required for this activity by allowing students to work with a partner or in a small group. This has the additional advantage of creating conversations around the meanings of the quotes and how to use real-world evidence to support these quotes. If you choose to have students complete the activity individually, you might accomplish the same goals by offering them time to present their charts to a small group for feedback. If your students are ready for an additional challenge, you might alter the instructions so that they are using books from the pre-selected list for three of the four quotes and researching on their own to choose a fourth book that does not appear on the list.

Differentiation Suggestion: English language learners, students with dyslexia, and those with attentional concerns and executive functioning differences may struggle to find the quotes needed for this activity. These students may have more success if allowed to gather the quotes in small groups or with a partner. The list of texts to research is deliberately more extensive than required to complete the activity so that students are exposed to a wide variety of examples; however, for students with learning differences that restrict attention, organization, or reading speed, it might be best to limit the list of texts to the first four, which will offer enough variety without repeating types of social impact.

Paired Text Extension: This activity can also be completed with Rushdie’s Luka and the Fire of Life, which makes substantially the same claims about the power of fiction.

Teaching Suggestion: If you choose to have students complete this activity with both Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Luka and the Fire of Life, you might ask that they set up four-column charts in which they choose quotes from each novel that make similar points and put these on the same row together, with Haroun quotes in the first column and Luka quotes in the second column, then the outside texts’ titles in the third column and their justifications in the final column. This set-up will allow students to explore how two texts can make similar points using different language and context.