Tuck Everlasting

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. What words and images come to mind to describe rural life in the late 1800s? What might have been the role of children during this time? What was their daily life like?

Teaching Suggestion: Tuck Everlasting takes place in rural Massachusetts in 1880 when Winnie Foster encounters the Tuck family while exploring the woods outside her house. It may be helpful to use the questions to access prior knowledge about the 1800s and share the words and images on the board or a common display. These and similar resources might be helpful in exploring life during this time.

• This article describes rural life in the late 19th century.
• This article explains what life was like for a child in the 19th century.  

Short Activity

Use descriptive words from the novel to make predictions about the Tuck and Foster families. Create a T-chart and compare the families by placing the words with the correct families and describe what you believe those words indicate about the family. Use these questions to guide your response.

• Who do you believe Winnie prefers to spend time with based on the descriptions?
• What do you think Winnie Foster’s character is like?
• How do you think Winnie would explain the Tuck family to a friend?
• Who would you prefer to spend time with?

Teaching Suggestion: Winnie Foster is kidnapped by the Tuck family when she stumbles on a stream that grants the family eternal life. The Tuck family becomes Winnie’s preferred family as she learns to love them by getting to know them better. One way to conduct this activity is to create a large T-chart in order for students to examine the words that are used in the novel to describe the two families, listed below. Then, consider asking the students to explain how they would feel about the families based on their interpretation of the words. Consider allowing students to continue to edit the chart as the novel progresses to update their thinking and descriptions.

• The Fosters: Strict, Orderly, Nagging
• The Tucks: Gentle chaos, Cluttered, Kind, Kidnappers

Differentiation Suggestion: Students who require an additional challenge may find it beneficial to explore the concept of a “found family” in popular literature and movies. Consider allowing students to conduct research on found families to compile a list of traits these families possess before finding examples in pop culture. Students can create a poster collage of found families for students to reference in the classroom.

Personal Connection Prompt

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

Think of stories or movies you have seen where a character is immortal. How do you think immortality might have an impact on an individual’s perspective? What are some negatives to living forever? Would you choose to live forever, if given the chance? What would you do if you had immortality?

Teaching Suggestion: The Tuck family has been living for 87 years without changing after inadvertently drinking from a stream that grants immortality. Later, Winnie is given the choice to drink from the stream herself or to die a natural death. Consider exploring the effects of immortality on behavior and thinking. It might be helpful to really encourage students to think about the negatives to immortality, because the positives are so clear. This will make their decision about whether they would choose to live forever stronger and better thought out.