Use these activities to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

ACTIVITY 1: “Dress the Part”

Hanna wants to be a dressmaker, and she enjoys sketching original dress designs. To prove her capabilities and maturity to Papa, she builds a well-constructed dress from start to finish with Bess’s help. She also notices how clothing details offer clues to one’s traits, such as when she sees cut-glass buttons on Miss Walters’s dress or notices that Pearl Baxter’s clothes are made from flour sacks.

In keeping with Hanna’s interest in clothes, choose 4-5 characters from the novel and “dress” them in representative colors, patterns, words, and images that reveal their traits, opinions, and character development.

• Draw (or download and print) on heavy-weight paper a human outline form for each of 4-5 characters.
• “Dress” each “paper doll” in clothing that befits his or her role in the story. Use clothing-shaped cut-outs from construction or scrapbook paper to show a variety of colors and patterns that symbolize each character’s traits and role in the story.
• Then, continue to “dress” each form with characterization words, phrases, and images from the text: physical descriptions, lines of dialogue especially representative of the character, personality traits, symbolic illustrations, moods, and emotions. Write or draw these directly on the “dressed” paper form.
• Compile all the “paper dolls” in the class by displaying them on a bulletin board. How does your version of a character compare with someone else’s?

Teaching Suggestion: To save time and jump into the heart of the activity, search online for printable human form outline templates to photocopy. A craft station can hold items for cutting, pasting, and searching (like old print publications or recyclables). Encourage “outside the box” thinking; for example, Dolly is rather flighty, so feathers trimming her dress would be an interesting, symbolic choice. Papa is temperamental and stubborn; what clothing colors represent those traits? Prompt students to verbalize rationales for choices and encourage review of scenes in the text to find words, phrases, symbols, and quotations.

Paired Text Extension:

Read Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s poem “An Obstacle.”

• How do the problems and actions of the speaker in the poem parallel Hanna’s conflicts, tactics, persistence, and resilience in the novel?
• Create a “paper doll” for the speaker of the poem. “Dress” the figure with colors, words, phrases, and images that connote her emotional transitions in the poem; find a way to emphasize the speaker’s determination at the outcome of the poem.

Teaching Suggestion: Connect the poem and the novel through the shared themes of Persistence as a Pathway to Success and Overcoming Prejudice. Students can discuss in small groups how the poem’s other themes of The Many Talents of Women and Taking Inspiration from Nature apply to Prairie Lotus as well.

• “An Obstacle” on SuperSummary

ACTIVITY 2: “LaForge Mini-Museum”

With a group of 3-5 classmates, create a museum of objects with symbolic significance to represent the novel Prairie Lotus.

• Work collaboratively to decide who will contribute each object. Objects must be real, actual, 3-dimensional items (no photos or printed images; Hanna’s own drawings, sketches, or written documents, though, would be permitted). You may use scaled objects as you might see in a model.
• Each person in your group is responsible for an exhibit caption and description for each of four objects. The caption will name and detail the object; the description will explain in what way(s) and to what degree the object is significant to Hanna and her character development. Symbolic value should be explained; any other literary devices such as foreshadowing should be pointed out as well.
• Revise, proofread, and edit your captions and descriptions; then, mount them on black cardstock or construction paper.
• Arrange your museum objects in a visually interesting way; use small stands or draped piles of books to provide a variety of elevations.
• Situate your captions/descriptions near the respective objects.

If time allows, each member of your group might present their objects as a museum curator would. Share the significance and symbolism of objects you contributed and reveal your rationale for including each; mention connections between Hanna’s character arc and the novel’s themes of Recognizing One’s Own Evolving Identity and Persistence as a Pathway to Success.

Teaching Suggestion: Suggestions for objects to include might be Mama’s button box, a pot for the soup Hanna makes, green fabric, or a red ribbon. Students might earn an individual grade on captions and descriptions, along with a work-group grade for their ability to stay on task, their completion of work according to deadlines and guidelines, and the overall aesthetics and professionalism of the museum display.