Home Fire

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.

“Preventing Tragedy & Advocating for Change”

In this activity, students will consider what could have prevented Aneeka and Eamonn’s deaths at the end of the novel and will use those reasons to create an advocacy campaign.

Home Fire ends in tragedy, with Aneeka and Eamonn dying. As a class, consider the events of the novel and what led to these deaths. How could the English government have prevented these deaths by advocating for better treatment of its Muslim citizens?

• Using the “Pathos, Logos, and Ethos” resource from St. Louis Community College, work with a partner to come up with ethical, logical, and emotional appeals to lawmakers.
• Codify your appeals into an outline of an advocacy campaign, complete with a targeted audience, message, and product(s).
• Then, as the first step in your advocacy campaign, write a letter to Karamat Lone explaining why you think that he should change his approach to British Muslim citizens and end his campaign for assimilation.

o Use at least one of each type of appeal to compose a persuasive missive.

o You may also draw on events in the novel and Tone’s own feelings after his son’s death to inform your message. You may also opt to write from Isma's perspective.

• Share your advocacy campaign ideas with the class. Read your most persuasive paragraph from your letter to Lone to the class.
• After all your classmates have shared, discuss with them which strategies and appeals you think were most persuasive and would be most effective in making change.

Teaching Suggestion: Consider allowing students to work in small groups for extra support in accomplishing all the elements of this activity. You may also consider conducting a mini-lesson on pathos, logos, and ethos before this activity to better support students who may have not yet mastered rhetorical appeals. Finally, to maximize what students gain from the activity, consider moderating the culminating discussion and encouraging students to cite detailed examples of effective appeals and identify specific rhetorical devices and strategies wherever possible.

Differentiation Suggestion: You may consider allowing students who struggle with written expression, students who demonstrate visual-spatial intelligences, and/or students who are interested or talented in the visual arts to create a protest sign in lieu of writing a persuasive letter. Protest signs would have the logical, ethical, and emotional appeals distilled down to a catchy slogan and/or be creatively/graphically represented in the visual content of the sign in some way. Students would present their signs to the class, explaining the appeals and the intended audience. Separately, to help students document their thoughts on effective strategies and appeals while their classmates present, you may consider sharing a note catcher or graphic organizer for students to fill in and refer to in the culminating discussion (or to submit if they do not participate in the discussion).