Out of the Dust

In the novel, people and the environment affect each other. Who/what has more power in Out of the Dust: people or the environment? Consider the following questions to help you think about this topic:

• How do characters impact the environment?
• What advice does Billie Jo’s mother offer about farming?
• What are some new ways characters learn to do less harm to the environment?
• How does the environment affect the lives of Billie Jo and her family?
• What is the definition of “power”?
• Which best fits the definition of “power”: people or the environment?

Teaching Suggestion: It might be helpful for students to free write and have time to do some close re-reading of key scenes before the discussion in order to more fully think through their ideas and find specific evidence. In addition, starting with the definition of “power“ before even introducing the overall question might be an interesting way to frame the discussion.

Differentiation Suggestion: For students who would benefit from an additional challenge and/or students who demonstrate verbal-linguistic intelligences or a particular propensity for argument, this might be a chance to incorporate the concept of a counter argument. Students could begin with a sentence stem such as “Although _______ does demonstrate some power in the novel by/through _______, ________ is more powerful because _______.” Students could practice applying these sentence stems and using counterarguments throughout the discussion. Students with executive function differences, English learners, and students who learn best from visual representation of complex topics could also benefit from sentence stems to structure their thoughts/responses as well as a graphic organizer such as a T-chart to organize their thinking about how power is represented in people versus the environment, for example.