The Pearl

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Where do pearls come from, and how are they used?

Teaching Suggestion: It may be helpful to share the following resources with students as they answer these questions. From there, you may want to explain and discuss why pearls are considered so valuable (such as scarcity, demand, their use as status symbols, etc.) as a prelude to future discussion of The Corrupting Influence of Greed. You could even invite students to describe their idea of a perfect or most valuable pearl to illustrate the subjectivity of perceived value, since students’ descriptions are likely to vary.

• A 3-minute video by National Geographic Wild demonstrating how pearls are formed
• "Pearl Diving in Mexico” describes the history and status of Mexico's pearl diving industry.

Short Activity

The narrator of The Pearl describes the story as a parable, or a simple narrative that illustrates a moral lesson. Suppose that a classmate asks you to help them cheat on an assignment. In a few simple sentences, write a parable demonstrating why cheating is a bad idea. Make sure your story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Then compare you story with a neighbor’s.

Teaching Suggestion: If students are having trouble getting started, encourage them to think about the consequences of cheating in the short term and/or the long term, then write a story that demonstrates those consequences. It may also be helpful to brainstorm a list of other (non-academic) scenarios in which cheating may take place as a starting point for potential stories, such as in a work situation or on a driver’s license exam; you could also share well-known examples of parables (e.g., the story of the Prodigal Son) to further illustrate the concept for students. After students have had a chance to compose and share their stories, consider discussing why stories are so effective at demonstrating principles (and how stories are nevertheless open to interpretation). If one student is willing to share their story with the class, you could consider whether that story’s message could be interpreted in multiple ways.

Differentiation Suggestion: Students who are visual learners may appreciate the option to develop and present their stories in comic-strip format, or else to illustrate a single moment from their story (perhaps the climax) as a visual aid.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novella.

“Be careful what you wish for” is a common expression warning that what someone wants and what is good for that person are not always mutually exclusive. Have you ever wished for something and then got what you wanted, only to find that you didn’t like it after all? Can you think of a fictional character or someone you know who has had that kind of experience? In either case, what caused you, that character, or the person you know to change your opinion of the thing you desired?? What did you (or the character/person you know) learn about yourself as a result?

Teaching Suggestion: If students are struggling to come up with examples, you can encourage them to think beyond material objects to seemingly favorable outcomes, turns of events, or otherwise non-physical thing (e.g., a job). After students have finished writing, discuss the tension between perception and reality, as well as the factors that create a distinction between the two, both external and internal. In particular, students might explore why what seems obvious to an outside observer isn’t always so simple to someone caught up in a particular situation. You could then briefly forecast some themes from The Pearl, such as the way that Kino’s lifestyle under The Instruments of Colonial Oppression influences his perception of value.