We Are Okay

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.

“Loneliness Project”

In this activity, students will increase awareness about loneliness, its prevalence, and steps to help decrease loneliness in the school community.

Marin experiences intense loneliness. Through it, she has people determined to help her: Hannah, Mabel, Ana, Javier, and others.

• Research to find at least two trustworthy resources about decreasing loneliness and increasing belonging.
• Read and identify important notes to share with others.
• Decide what message(s) you want to convey.
• Create a project to share your findings: slide presentation, poster, speech, etc.
• Revise and practice presenting.

Share with the class.

Write a pledge to post in our classroom about what you will do to decrease loneliness in our school community.

Teaching Suggestion: It might work well to have students share resources and develop projects in pairs or small groups. Students might present in whole-class presentations or a gallery walk. This activity could evolve into a larger project, where students share with their families and/or involve more of the school beyond their class. It could also evolve into a service learning project if needed.

Differentiation Suggestion: Students with musical talents or learning styles might create a song to present or set their presentation to music. Students with interpersonal talents or learning styles could act out a short drama.

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Food features prominently in the novel.

• What meaning does it build for Marin? (topic sentence)
• As you build your essay, incorporate at least four details and quotations and thorough reasoning.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, reflect on how food impacts the final chapter.

2. Marin travels through waves of feelings toward Gramps.

• How would you characterize Gramps? (topic sentence)
• As you write your essay, include at least three quotations and details to support your ideas, analyzing each.
• In your conclusion, explain how Marin feels about Gramps by the end of the novel.

3. Marin experiences profound Grief and Loss and Loneliness.

• To what extent does she find Healing and Belonging by the end of the novel? (topic sentence)
• As you compose your essay, incorporate four or more quotations and specific details, and explain each.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, articulate a lesson the novel teaches about Healing and Belonging.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Marin deals with a great deal over the course of a few wintery days. How does the style of the novel build the themes of Grief and Loss, Loneliness, and Healing and Belonging? What is the effect of having the present plot take place in just a few days? How does incorporating flashbacks instead of a chronologically linear plot affect the novel? How does the season of winter and the snowstorm develop the moods and meaning? As you craft your essay, incorporate at least three quotations and additional details. Cite each quotation with page number.

2. Marin tells her story through details, flashbacks, dialogue, and inner thoughts. How reliable a narrator is Marin? When does she demonstrate her commitment to the truth? Where does she seem to be covering something up or possibly revealing a bias? How important is it to Marin that she understand the truth? To what extent do other characters’ words suggest she is being truthful or biased? How does her reliability affect the story? As you build your essay, include at least three quotations with citations as well as additional specifics.

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Which of the following best describes how Gramps faces his daughter’s death?

A) Gramps reaches out to friends to talk about his daughter and shares favorite memories with Marin.

B) Gramps never fully accepts his daughter’s death, building a shrine to her and writing letters to and from her.

C) Gramps falls deeply into grief until Marin asks him to help her find a baby picture, and he begins to heal through pictures.

D) Gramps leaves for a while to hike and camp on his own immediately after her death, then returns sad but beginning to heal.

2. Who does Birdie turn out to be?

A) Marin’s mom

B) Ana’s aunt

C) Gramps’s girlfriend

D) Ben’s grandmother

3. Which of the following most builds the theme of Loneliness?

A) Ana and Javier’s trip to New York in winter

B) Mabel’s stopping by Marin’s home to eat with her and Gramps

C) The weekly poker games at Gramp’s and Marin’s home

D) Marin in the dorm after Hannah leaves for winter break

4. What best explains how Marin and Gramps share the house?

A) They are constantly together in the kitchen, their favorite room, but also work to clean the whole house together each Saturday.

B) They usually only see each other in passing, staying in the house on opposite days and never together.

C) They have rooms across the hall from each other, often calling jokes to each other and each day playing cards together.

D) They eat together and have some routines together, then retreat to separate sections of the house.

5. How does the pottery store symbolize hope for Marin?

A) Marin sees the yellow bowls as a sign she should take a pottery class there, which she signs up for with Mabel.

B) Marin drops a vase, which shatters as her heart has, but as she glues the pieces back together, she also pieces together plans for healing herself.

C) Marin and Mabel find matching gifts there, which Marin views as a sign they will find a way to continue their friendship.

D) Marin asks to work there and looks forward to the owner calling soon, showing her starting to return to finding joy.

6. What figurative language does the following quotation include?

“We are safely inside my room, but outside the snow pours—not drifts—from the sky. No more roads, no more paths. The tree branches are heavy and white, and Mabel and I are dorm-bound” (Chapter 8).

A) Imagery

B) Simile

C) Personification

D) Irony

7. What best summarizes what the snowstorm symbolizes?

A) Hope before tragedy and sadness

B) Burial and death leading to pain for others

C) Being trapped with memories and a fresh start

D) Anger and resentment toward others

8. What is different about Gramps when he lectures Marin about money and being frugal?

A) Gramps is physically more frail and emotionally more serious.

B) Gramps acts almost giddy and increasingly full of energy.

C) Gramps shows anger and blame toward Marin.

D) Gramps speaks more loudly and forgets what he is saying.

9. Which of the following best captures the symbolism of the ocean?

A) Death and destruction

B) Friendship and parties

C) Transformation

D) Unhappiness

10. Why is the point of view of the novel important to the meaning?

A) Switching between Mabel’s and Marin’s points of view helps the reader see why they initially connected and why they lost each other.

B) It is key that Marin tells the story from her perspective, since so much of it is her internal thoughts and feelings.

C) The third-person narrator is best positioned to detail the truth about multiple characters, especially Gramps and Marin.

D) Gramps as narrator most clearly can reveal Marin’s childhood, better than she could remember.

11. How are books important to Marin?

A) Marin only learns about her mother through books.

B) Marin and Mabel send each other books to connect across miles.

C) Marin enjoys analyzing books, emphasizing the ambiguity.

D) Marin got a scholarship to college because of her literary analysis.

12. What is the effect of telling the story in a non-linear way?

A) Mabel is able to trace back through memories to locate Marin and come visit her, and the reader explores the mystery simultaneously.

B) As Gramps slowly loses his memories, he shares some poignantly with Marin, revealing her childhood to her and the reader in the process.

C) The reader discovers what Marin experienced for the past several months at the same time that she faces it and Mabel learns about it.

D) Ana’s memories intersperse with Marin’s, illustrating parallels in their lives and highlighting their bond for the reader.

13. Which of the following best illustrates Marin’s healing?

A) The bulletin board she decorates after Mabel leaves

B) Her shopping for food before Mabel arrives

C) Her staying at the hotel for two weeks on her own

D) The new clothes she buys at the school store

14. How does Ana help Marin?

A) Ana offers Marin a job at her store when Marin is at her most isolated.

B) Ana connects with Marin and offers a warm and accepting home.

C) Ana calls Marin when she is at the hotel and convinces her to come home.

D) Ana pays for Marin’s college, assuring she does not have to worry about money.

15. Which is the accurate chronological order of events?

A) Marin’s mom dies; Marin stays in a hotel alone; Marin and Mabel get stuck in a snowstorm in New York; Marin agrees to become a part of Mabel’s family.

B) Marin agrees to become a part of Mabel’s family; Marin’s mom dies; Marin stays in a hotel alone; Marin and Mabel get stuck in a snowstorm in New York.

C) Marin and Mabel get stuck in a snowstorm in New York; Marin agrees to become a part of Mabel’s family; Marin’s mom dies; Marin stays in a hotel alone.

D) Marin stays in a hotel alone; Marin and Mabel get stuck in a snowstorm in New York; Marin agrees to become a part of Mabel’s family; Marin’s mom dies.

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. How does snow affect the plot?

2. What mood is built at the end of the novel in the scene with Marin and Ana?