There are many themes, symbols and motifs present throughout the novel The Girl Who Drank The Moon. In this activity, students will identify themes, symbols, and motifs and illustrate examples from the text. Students can explore by identifying these elements themselves or in an “envelope activity”, where they are given one or more to track throughout their reading. Then, they'll create a spider map illustrating what they found!
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Due Date:
Objective: Create a storyboard that identifies recurring themes, symbols, or motifs found in The Girl Who Drank The Moon. Illustrate each and write a short description below each cell.
Student Instructions:
Boost engagement by weaving analysis of themes, symbols, and motifs into daily classroom conversations. Ask students to share their observations during read-alouds or after independent reading, prompting them with questions like, “What recurring ideas did you spot?” or “Why do you think this symbol keeps appearing?” This approach makes literary analysis feel natural and collaborative.
Give students visual tools like Venn diagrams or T-charts to compare and contrast different themes, symbols, and motifs. Let them organize their findings, helping them recognize patterns and deepen their understanding of the text. Graphic organizers make abstract concepts more concrete and accessible.
Assign creative options such as posters, dioramas, or digital presentations where students illustrate and explain a chosen theme, symbol, or motif. This lets students show comprehension in a hands-on way, catering to different learning styles and making the analysis memorable.
Organize small group or partner sessions where students present their analysis and visuals to peers. Encourage classmates to ask questions or provide feedback, fostering a collaborative learning environment and refining each student’s critical thinking skills.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon explores major themes such as sorrow vs. hope, family and love, power vs. inequality, storytelling, and the contrast between light and darkness. These themes highlight character growth and the importance of remembering, empathy, and resilience.
Use activities like spider mapping, envelope activities (tracking assigned elements), and storyboard creation to help students identify and illustrate themes, symbols, and motifs. Encourage students to provide examples from the text and explain their significance.
Symbols and motifs include The Bog (creation of life), cloudiness, fog, and sunshine (confusion vs. clarity), light vs. darkness, Fyrian's size, and memory and forgetting. Each represents deeper meanings tied to the story's messages.
Storytelling shapes the characters' beliefs and decisions, passing down knowledge and challenging censorship. The novel shows how stories can both hide and reveal the truth, impacting the community’s understanding of hope and sorrow.
Assign students to pick a theme, symbol, or motif, find supporting examples in the book, and create a storyboard with images and short descriptions. This visual approach helps deepen understanding and supports diverse learning styles.