The Giver

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. New York: Laurel Leaf, 2002.

Lois Lowry won the Newbery Medal for The Giver in 1994. The main character, Jonas, is born into an ideal world where there is no fear, pain, war, choices, sickness, unemployment, poverty or crime. When Jonas turns twelve years old, he receives special training from The Giver to be the community's Receiver of Memories. It is through the old man's knowledge that he discovers the disturbing truth about the pain and pleasures of life. Jonas must learn to examine the truth of his society and not turn back. This is an unwinding tail for adventurous readers that poses numerous questions that go unanswered throughout the tale.

Resources to Support the Text

Online Chapter Quizzes

The teacher can easily access these chapter quizzes that guide the reading of the students. The quizzes are broken down by chapters of the book and are in multiple choice formats. The teacher can distribute these quizzes to support the students learning after they have completed reading chapters to check there comprehension and understanding. If the quizzes show that particular students do not understand certain concepts mentioned in the chapters, then the teacher can go back and re-teach the chapter or have the students re-read it for context. This website also provides activities to reinforce what the students are learning that correlate to the text.

Interview with Lois Lowry

This link is a short video interview with Lois Lowry. This video can be shown when the teacher is introducing the text before the students begin reading it. Lowry talks about her award in winning the Newbery Medal and reveals her influences behind her ideas, the main character and events that took place in the novel. This video is a great comprehension tool to build and support the student's background knowledge about the text and author before beginning reading.

Key Vocabulary

Apprehensive, meticulously, prestige, palpable, commotion, obsolete, transgression, exuberant, hueless, nurturer

Reading Strategy

After reading, have the students complete Poems for Two Voices. Pair the students in the class together and allow them to compare and contrast life of the people in the community in the book to life in their personal community. This will build on the student's comprehension through letting them construct meaning from the text about the community that Jonas lives in and comparing it to their own life. The students will need to look back into the book for specific examples and details about the community.

Writing Activity

The ending of The Giver can be interpreted in several different ways. Use information from the text to choose a possible interpretation of the ending and argue its validity.