We're Not from Here

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

“A Comedy of Me”

In this activity, students create jokes and other comic elements that they might have used to sway Zhuri opinion on Choom.

Lan engages the Zhuri with comedy, which gradually starts to change Zhuri opinion of them, especially among the students at school. Much comedy has universal appeal, and though Lan draws upon human experience, the other species on Choom understand them.

• Pretend you are in Lan’s place. Using your own personal experiences, create 3-5 individual pieces of comedy that would serve as part of a skit to change the Zhuris’ opinions of you and humans.
• These could be jokes, physical comedy (such as Lan’s Zhuri walk), images, or puns.
• If you will be sharing your pieces of comedy, practice your delivery on your own or with a partner.
• Classmates who are willing to do so might share their jokes or skits.
• How do your ideas and those of classmates compare to Lan’s comic moments in the novel? In a brief paragraph, summarize the strongest messages conveyed by your classmates’ comic ideas.

Teaching Suggestion: Students can engage in pre-activity discussion on appropriateness regarding humor and jokes, providing a way to establish guidelines before they work on the activity. Though this assignment could be completed individually, it could also be assigned to small groups, both in the interest of time and to let students see how others approach comedy and what people can produce by collaborating. Afterwards, student might explain why they chose the type of comedy they did and how they think it would help make the humans’ case to the Zhuri.

Differentiation Suggestion: Students who might benefit from reduced requirements can be asked to come up with 1-2 pieces of comedy, instead of 5. Students who are English language learners or who might find the comic requirements of the activity uncomfortable might instead list 3-5 specific instances of Lan’s humor in the novel, ranked in order of effectiveness.