The Giver: Lois Lowry Biography - “On the Move”
English I Honors
Name ______Date ______
Directions:
- As you watch the documentary on Lois Lowry (YouTube), answer the following questions.
- Some Questions will require Short Answer Responses; other Questions will require Constructed Responses.
TAKE NOTES ON THIS PAPER, AND WRITE FORMAL ANSWERS ON A SEPARATE SHEET OF PAPER.
“On the Move”
What career did Lois Lowry’s father have?
Where was Lois Lowry born? What does her birth certificate say?
What year can you pinpoint this time period? Why?
What caused her mother to move East, and where did she grow up? Describe the place.
Where did she attend 7th and 8th grade? High school?
A Poet in Pajamas”
What did Lois Lowry’s grandfather have her do when company visited?
What terms does she use to describe this event?
When she was a student at Brown University that stated what?
What poem had she read from memory?
Read the poem, and explain why reciting this poem as a young child was such a feat? What is the poem about?
What did Lois Lowry do with what she was given? Are you suprozed by her actions? Why?
What does she say this is her “history of?” Why does she say this?
“An Interrupted Education”
What did she go to college to major in? Did she have financial support?
What decade did she attend college?
What happened to this person she met earlier? Did this surprise you?
Why did she say that her school interrupted was a good thing?
Does she regret her actions? What does she tell young people though?
“A Love For Words”
How does she respond to “Why do I write?”
What famous person does she mention? Why? What analogy in her story is she making?
What is the “Most Important thing for her? Explain her thought process ans reasons.
“A Summer to Die”
What year was Summer to Die published? How long has she been signing this book that is still in print?
What category of people had she previously been writing? What category did her publisher suggest?
What topic did she use for her first book?
How did she “fictionalize” her personal story from real life? Give the synopsis of the book.
What is the “realistic” part of the book?
How was this book received from the public and book critics?
What made her “turn” to writing for “kids?” Explain.
Why is it different for Lowry to write for adults?
“The Giver”
When does Lowry “believe” The Giver was first published?
What genre did she Not like?
What does Lowry call her genre for the novel?
How is the novel different from Contemporary writing?
What does she hope young readers will envision through the first third of the novel? How?
What does she says comes in “bits and pieces” as the novel progresses? And how will the reader feel?
What word does she use to describe the “underbelly” to this place where [he] lives?
How old is the boy (protagonist) as the novel concludes? And what is [he] trying to do at the end of the novel?
What awards has this novel won?
Since 1993 what has happened with her novel? What does that mean? What exactly happens?
“Revving It Up and Slowing It Down”
What are the two things that she does “intuitively?” What does intuitively mean?
How does she describe “pacing?” Why do you think authors go to al of this trouble to pace their novels?
Why does Lowry not like to have editors involved in her writing? What do editors not see?
What analogy does she make to “pacing?” Describe the analogy.