Tasks for The Star Fisher

The Star Fisher: Activities

Target Task

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Target Task:

By reading and analysing Laurence Yep's The Star Fisher, the students should trace the development of the main character Joan Lee. The focus should be on how she and her family cope with the difficult situation of prejudice, including such topics as moving to a new place, dealing with language barriers, adjusting to a different situation, and overcoming tensions within the family.
The reader should follow the process of Joan's adjustment to her new situation in Clarksburg, West Virginia, and relate it to the central motive of the star fisher.

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1. Pre-Reading Activities

A visual stimulus as a starting point to the topic of racial prejudice

The teacher presents a picture that captures a situation concerning prejudice, for instance graffiti on a wall. The pupils write down or discuss their thoughts and reactions to the picture. Thus, a starting point to enter the novel and the topic of racial prejudice is found.
Alternative: Use a little story or poem to get into the topic.

Key words to collect the students' expectations

The students are given key words taken from the book itself, e.g.:
Chinese, West Virginia, laundry, Joan Lee, tradition, humiliation, ...
Afterwards, they are asked to guess what the novel is about and write a blurb, a text that might appear on the back book cover. Then, the class reads the real blurb including the comments about the novel. Finally, the students give their impressions: Does the blurb arouse your interest? What are your expectations?

Getting a taste of the novel and continuing it creatively

The students are asked to read aloud the first couple of pages until "A few other people had gotten off in Clarksburg, among them the lacemaker, with a small valise." (p.7) Then, the task is given to continue the story by predicting what is going to happen once the familiy has arrived in the new town.

Access to the novel by making use of information on the author

The teacher introduces the book using a short extract of an interview with Laurence Yep or any other source of useful information on the author. This information may be taken from the web, for instance from the following sites: http://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/ieo/bibs/yep.html
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/yep.htm

These are general pages on Laurence Yep, which provide a lot of further references and links, for example the site http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/yep.html,
where a good biography of the author of children's literature can be found.
After gaining some insight into the life of the author, the students are asked to give their impressions and opinions, especially in reference to their expectations about The Star Fisher.

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Whatever pre-reading task is selected to get into the novel, it may be very useful after having read the whole text to compare the first ideas and impressions with the experiences that have been made with The Star Fisher.
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2. While-Reading Activities

Character- related activities

The students are asked to write about their expectations for certain characters, for example:

"I hope Joan Lee will ..." (e.g. after the first paragraph of chapter 6 on p. 53;
"I think Bernice will ..." (e.g. in chapter 12, p. 125, after: "'Eat', Mama insisted.")
"Miss Lucy will say/do ..." (e.g. in chapter , p. 134, conflict situation when Miss Lucy appears: "... As soon as they saw her, the two fell silent, shifting uncomfortably as they leaned against the church.")
"I predict that Joan will ..." (e.g. after chapter 8, when Joan leaves her parents' house)

The students could also write about their emotions towards the characters, for instance.:

"I am afraid that in the future, ..." (e.g. at the beginning of chapter 7; no customers have shown up at the laundry until this point of time)
"I am worried about ..." (e.g. Joan's situation at the end of chapter 6)

Following this task, the students read ahead. As soon as they have gathered enough information on a certain character, a more detailed character analysis may be carried out.

Write a poem that Joan's father could have written

For Joan's father, poetry is an outlet for the stressful situation he is in. On p.34, Joan's mother declares: "I have a feeling he'll have to write a lot of poetry tonight." In this task, the students should write poems they think Joan's father could have written. If the students haven't had prior experience writing poetry, a guideline should be provided for the structure of the poem. For instance, a haiku form could be chosen. (A haiku is a Japanese verse form consisting of three unrhymed lines that together contain a total of 17 syllables. The three lines usually consist of five, seven, and five syllables in turn.)

A closer look at the character constellation

In the course of the novel, the relationships between the characters are subject to many changes. Thus, they reflect the events of the novel and the development of the characters. Therefore, it can be useful to employ the following activity to make the character constellation clearer:
The students are asked to create a "concept map" on a piece of paper by arranging the characters depending on their relationship to each other. If two characters are close friends, they should be grouped next to each other, whereas a large gap between characters implies a bad or no relationship. As the relation can be seen in a different way from the point of view of different characters, it makes sense to draw arrows between the characters and attach verbal phrases to them which reveal information on the attitude, opinion, and feelings of the very character. Before starting the activity, phrases which are suitable for describing the relationship between people should be worked out, because the students might not be too familiar with them, e.g. like, respect, to have problems with, hate, depend on etc. Thus, a "map" can be created which captures the relationships between the characters that are important for the story .
This activity can be carried out at different stages of the novel:

after chapter five, when the family has already moved in, but the childen haven't made any friends yet
after chapter seven, when Joan's brother and sister have already found some friends, whereas Joan has not
after chapter eleven, when Joan's mother promised to bring a pie for the social evening at the local church
after chapter thirteen, when the incidence of racial discrimination has occurred
at the end of the novel

So, each student is asked to create a "concept map" (possible alternative: pair work), so that the different products can be discussed and compared with the events of the novel later. It is even useful to employ this activity two or three times, because then the events of the novel and their effects on the characters can be traced with the help of the "concept maps".

Imagine a conversation between Joan and Ann

Joan is fed up with the conflict between her and Ann. She decides to confront Ann with the problem by talking to her privately. Write down and act out that conversation!

The image of the star fisher

The students are asked to keep a detective's log of clues regarding all references to the star fisher in the novel. How do these references relate to the development of Joan?

Create a time line of important events

The goal of this task is to create a time line of important events in the novel, separating the negative events from the positive events. A vertical time line is the most practical, because it is easier to compare the positive and negative aspects on the left and right sides of the time line.
After reading each chapter, the students can add the important events on their time lines. By doing this, the students will gain a better overview of the plot of The Star Fisher during the reading process. This overview will be helpful in order to connect Joan's development to the events of the story.

Mother-daughter relationship: writing diary entries

In chapters five and eight there are a lot of tensions between Joan and her mother. After the students finish reading these chapters, they are divided into two groups.Half of the students write diary entries from Joan's perspective, and the other half write from her mother's perspective. The diary entries can then either be read out loud or hung on the walls to be read. Finally, a discussion can take place about the mother-daughter relationship and the different perspectives involved. If this task is used for both chapters, a comparison to the earlier diary entries could take place.

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3. Post-Reading Activities

What would have happened if...?

In this task, the students are asked to imagine how the story would have been different, had certain characters or events been different. For instance: "What if Miss Lucy had not been there?", "What if the pie social had not been a success?" It is useful to include this task in the later stages of reading; otherwise, the students would not have enough knowledge of the story and its characters.

The motive of the star fisher

Why does Joan refer to the star fisher time and again? How does she compare the story to her own situation? In what ways is she like/unlike the star fisher? The following references may be helpful for this discussion:
chapter 4 (the original story), p. 63-63, p. 71-72 (mother), p. 92 (Bernice), p. 99-100 (Joan and her mother), p. 102, p. 124-125, p. 147

The role of language

In what ways does the use of two languages affect Joan and her environment? Find proof in the text!
For discussing this point, the following pages should be considered:
p. 4, p. 15, p. 20, p. 26-28, p. 32-33, p. 55-56, p. 80-83, p. 102-109, p. 126-127, p. 139-140, p. 142, p. 146.

The importance of location?

Did it matter where the story took place, or could it have happened anywhere else? What about your own hometown? Give your opinion.

Positive and negative comments on the novel

Did you like the novel? Do you consider the story to be realistic?
These aspects could be discussed in class or be dealt with in the form of book reviews.

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