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Novel Study: Strength through Struggle 'Salt to the Sea'

Overview

A study of the historical fiction novel Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys. Students will explore and track shifting, changing, and interweaving narrative voices to gain an understanding of how writers successfully structure and craft their texts in a sophisticated way. Students will use this understanding to inform their own pieces of narrative writing.

Unit aims:

  • Study a text within a historical framing (WW2) to deepen inference potential
  • Develop selection and retrieval skills to evidence ideas
  • Consider, reflect and evaluate how key themes are presented in the novel: identity, social and moral responsibility, prejudice and inner strength
  • Draw comparisons between fiction and non-fiction

Example Key Words

Foreshadowing

A warning or indication of (a future event)

Dual Narrative

A form of narrative that tells a story in two different perspectives, usually two different people.

Perspective

A particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; point of view.

Semantic Field

A lexical set of semantically related items.

Pathetic Fallacy

The attribution of human feelings and responses to inanimate things or animals, especially in art and literature.

Narrator

A person who narrates something, especially a character who recounts the events of a novel or narrative poem.

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