The Barren Grounds

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

What is stewardship? How does this word relate to the Earth and the environment?

Teaching Suggestion: Caring for the Earth is a major theme in the novel. Students might work briefly with a partner to define and list 2-3 examples of stewardship, then compare responses with at least one other pair before taking part in whole-group discussion. These and similar resources may be helpful in providing additional context.

• This brief entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia discusses the long history of stewardship in the country and summarizes the difference between environmental stewardship and environmental management.
• National Geographic has a resource site on “Conservation” with listed, defined vocabulary.

Short Activity

The author and main characters are members of the Cree culture. Work with a small group to research one of the topics below. Prepare a brief presentation to teach the class.

• Cree history (pre-1700s)
• Cree history (1700s-1800s)
• Cree history (1900s-2000s)
• Cree geography and language
• Cree beliefs
• Cree community

Organize your main points on a visual aid such as a poster or slideshow.

Teaching Suggestion: Expanding student understanding of this culture may be important before beginning this novel. These and similar resources may help with the activity and in building context more generally. Students might read and annotate the documents, writing additional questions that can be used in the short activity. Some aspects central to the novel are the connection to the environment, working cooperatively, and spirituality.

The topics present one way to organize this project. Another option includes a more open-ended approach, with students researching topics or questions they choose instead of a designated sub-topic. The links represent a place to start; this project could also provide an opportunity to discuss what makes a strong source and practice identifying which to use.

• This site from Britannica presents history of the Cree and includes images, background, and additional links.
• In “The Nêhiyaw (Cree),” Gladue Rights Research Database includes information about the history and culture of Cree First Nations.
• This resource from the Grand Council of the Crees offers a vision for the environment and links to other topics.
• This resource from the University of Saskatchewan presents information about Cree culture and beliefs.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

Why do you think “portal stories” (stories in which a protagonist is transported magically to a different time and place) are popular with a variety of readers? If you encountered your own magical portal, what kind of a world would you hope it opened into? What does this choice say about the “real” world or about who you are as a person?

Teaching Suggestion: In a portal fantasy, the reader experiences through the characters what it is like to escape into another reality. This prompt builds empathy for the characters and cues students to consider how the particular world experienced by Morgan and Eli reveals aspects of character, conflict, and theme.

Differentiation Suggestion: To increase agency and meet various learning styles, students might approach this prompt from a variety of ways in which they can use creativity such as depicting a visual image or performing a song, skit, or poem that represents their discovered portal.