Protecting the Pack
By Peter Johnson

Overview
     The book we're looking at in this exercise is Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause. There are things that all family groups do to protect their members. This assignment is designed to have students take a look at their families and the traditions and customs that they have.

Goals
     The goal of this assignment is for students to realize that they have things in common with the main character in the book even if the way that their family is put together is different from hers.

Materials and Resources
     This is primarily a writing assignment, though students might need to talk to their parents or grandparents about family traditions and why they do the specific things that they do.

Activities
     The main part of this assignment is to actually write the essay about the specific things that your family does to protect you or make you a family.

Extension
     The possibility for extension lies best in making the paper a compare/contrast of the activities that the pack participates in, in the book.

Accommodation
     The largest problem could be with students who are missing a parent or have divorced parents who are touchy about the subject. Hopefully this wouldn't hit them too close to home and is something that they could complete.

Evaluation
     Evaluation comes in the form of the paper. I’ll know if my students understand the point that I'm trying to get across when I read their papers.