Knopf 1 Allison Knopf Professor Bloem ENG 309 April 3, 2014

The Sea: Presenting Physical and Personal Challenges

The Three Newbery Winners The sea itself, including all of its beauty, terror and challenges, is the main theme of this text set. The anchor books for this set are The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi, The Black Pearl, by Scott ODell and Call it Courage, by Armstrong Sperry. The central characters of these novels are connected to the sea in different ways, but are presented with similar challenges. These three Newbery Award winning novels speak both to challenges of the sea, and to the challenges of growing up. The characters face the physical challenges ahead of them while learning to make important decisions alone and defining themselves as individuals. Avis main character, Charlotte, is a thirteen-year-old girl and the novel is a detailed account of her journey from Liverpool, England to Providence Rhode Island as the only female aboard the Seahawk. After an incident of clear injustice on behalf of the captain, Charlotte begins to doubt his moral character and makes the crucial decision to abandon her friendship with him and become one of the crew. When the ship is caught in a hurricane, the first mate is found dead with Charlottes knife in his back and the captain finds her guilty of the murder. With the help of Zachariah, the oldest sailor and her closest friend on the ship, she overthrows the Captain Jaggery and is named captain in his place. When the ship lands in Providence, Charlottes family is appalled by her dark skin, chopped hair and rough hands. She decides after a short time with them that she does not want the life her parents have planned for her and runs away in the night back to the Seahawk where she is welcomed aboard by none

Knopf 2 other than Zachariah. She is no longer the shy, proper, and pale child she once was. She is a sailor; tough, strong and in love with the sea. Similarly to Charlotte, Mafatu in Armstrong Sperrys Call it Courage, has a strong relationship with the sea, which begins negatively and ends positively. Mafatu, whose name means stout heart, lives in Hikueru, an island in the Pacific Ocean. He is known throughout his people as the Boy Who Was Afraid. Mafatu decides to leave Hikueru entirely and vows not to return until he has earned his name. He sets out in a canoe with nothing but a few days of food, water, his dog Uri and his albatross, Kivi, who guides the way across the ocean. His plan is to find another island and establish himself as a man in another people group, then return home as a man of bravery. While he is at sea, Mafatus worst fears come true. A great storm catches him and he fears that the god of the sea is trying to take his life. Through a lot of prayer and mustering of courage, Mafatu makes it through the storm and is guided by Kivi to an unfamiliar island. There he builds a shelter, creates weapons, kills a boar, a hammer head shark, and an octopus. In the very end of the novel Mafatu returns to his home. Upon seeing the trophies of his kills and the brave spirit in his eyes, his father declares that this is his brave son and he deserves his brave name. In The Black Pearl, by Scott ODell, Ramon Salazar also wants to prove himself to his father. His father is the owner of a pearling company and makes Ramon his partner when he turns sixteen. Ramon wants to prove himself as a pearl diver and as a man and decides to find the pearl of heaven, the biggest, most beautiful pearl in existence. He asks a partner in trade, Soto Luzon, to take him to his secret pearl gathering lagoon. Luzon teaches Ramon to dive and warns him to stay away from the lair of the Manta Diablo. Ramons first words to the reader are about the legendary Manta Diablo, a legened giant manta ray that roams the ocean taking the lives of sailors. Despite growing up with the stories of the Manta, Ramon ignores Luzons advice goes off on his own to the Mantas lair, where he finds and takes a gigantic black pearl.

Knopf 3 On his fathers next pearl gathering voyage, their entire fleet of ships is caught in a storm and the only survivor is the Sevillano, a man in his fathers service. This event erases any doubt in Ramons mind about the legitimacy of the Manta Diablo and he attempts to return the pearl. On his trip back to the lair, he is followed by the Sevillano, who then kidnaps him. The situation is bleak when suddenly both notice the Manta Diablo circling their small boat. The Sevillano casts a spear, hitting the manta. He then jumps on its back and is dragged down into the sea, never to be seen again. With both the Sevillano and the Manta dead below the waves, Ramon returns home, pearl in hand. Here in lies his transformation, rather than sell it for immediate monetary gain, as he would have at the beginning of the story, Ramon chooses to honor his father by placing the pearl in the hands of the Virgin Mary statue in his church. He was a nave child at the beginning, in the end, he is an experienced sailor, diver and witness to the legend of the Manta Diablo. As seen throughout these texts, the three main characters, Charlotte, Mafatu and Ramon face similar challenges and have similar experiences presented by the sea and sailing in general. This includes the challenge and devastation of storms; Charlotte is caught in a hurricane, Mafatu is trapped in a storm in his tiny canoe, and a massive storm at sea takes the lives of Ramons father and all of his crew. They all face the legitimacy of legends; Charlotte observes a red bird, which she is told is a bad omen; Mafatu questions what he knows to be the fishing god and the sea god; and Ramon is faced with the Manta Diablo. All of them experience back breaking and challenging work, on a ship, in a small row boat, or below the surface of the sea itself. They face these challenges with determination and passion. Their character grows with these challenges, becoming more complex as they conquer them. Along with those challenges, these characters face coming into adulthood in their unique cultural contexts. For Charlotte, growing up means abandoning her family and choosing her own direction in life. Mafatu sees himself as a man when he is able to return home with his trophies and stories of bravery. Making the difficult decision to give the pearl of heaven to the Virgin Mary,

Knopf 4 demonstrates Ramons transformation to a man. Together, these three novels paint a picture of both the beauty and the terror to be found at sea, as well as the stories of self-discovery and transformation with which most young adults can identify. The Accompanying Texts This text set includes six accompanying texts to support the understanding of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, The Black Pearl, and Call it Courage. Learning from a text set based off of the sea could prove challenging for students who have no experience with the sea. This text set is meant to provide pictures, maps, information, poems and fiction to help support an understanding of the sea itself in order to enhance understanding of the three Newbery Award winners. It is important to understand the physical locations and of these three adventures in order to appreciate the distances they traveled. Google Earth (earth.google.com) is a clear and helpful tool to look at locations, calculate travel time and trace travel paths. This is especially useful when tracking Charlottes voyage from Liverpool England, to Providence Rhode Island. The picture book Ship, by David Macaulay is a helpful support for The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. The first half of this book tells the story of people in the 21st century digging up pieces of a ship from the ocean floor and putting it together. The ship is from the same period that Charlotte traveled. The second half is about the original building of the ship. This book will be helpful with understanding the vocabulary Charlotte uses when describing the ship of her journey. It can be used to locate where in the ship she is at any given time. Hope is a thing with feathers by Emily Dickenson specifically speaks to The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and Call it Courage. In both books, birds are a clear sign of hope for nearby land. While Dickensons poem does not explicitly refer to birds being signs of hope for sailors, the reader will see this connection and come to understand the poem from a sailors point of view.

Knopf 5 Included in this set are two YouTube videos to help students understand the idea of pearling, which is the central focus of The Black Pearl. One video is about the removal of a pearl from an oyster. Students are able to see what an oyster is, the flesh inside and where the pearl comes from within it. The second video is of the pearl pealing process. Ramons father peals the pearl of heaven to remove imperfections and this is a critical moment in the story. To students without any experience with pearls, both concepts will be completely foreign without a visual representation. National Geographic has a magazine written specifically for kids and the issue Oceans: Dolphins,
sharks penguins, and more! focuses on 30 different ocean creatures. It supports all three books with

general information about the oceans of the world. It specifically supports both The Black Pearl and Call it Courage with information about hammerhead sharks, octopi, and manta rays. The boys face these creatures and reading technical information about them will give students a better understanding of what they were up against. John Ciadris poem The Shark also relates to Ramon and Mafatus stories as it personifies a terrifying and large sea creature. The narrator tells the reader the thoughts of a shark and describes him with clear detail. This poem will enhance students understanding of the fear that both Ramon and Mafatu experienced when dealing with threatening sea creatures. It is also written very cleverly and it is enjoyable to read. Bringing all of these texts together gives students the chance to delve deeper into understanding the three Newbery Award winners. All three include elements that will be confusing without further explanation and visual representation. With the support of these texts, students are given the chance to grow and transform alongside the characters.

Knopf 6 Bibliography
Avi. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. New York: Orchard Books, 1990. Print. Ciadri, John. The Shark. Fire in the Sea. Ed. Sue Cowing. University of Hawaii Press, 1996. 61. Print. Dickinson, Emily. Hope is a Thing with Feathers. Fire in the Sea. Ed. Sue Cowing. University of Hawaii Press. 1996. 81. Print. "Google Earth." 2005. 23 Mar. 2014 <http://earth.google.com/> Macaulay, David. Ship. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993. Print. "Natural Pearl Harvest 2009 - YouTube." 2010. 23 Mar. 2014 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trhpwNZioI> ODell, Scott. The Black Pearl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967. Print "Pearl Peeling Process - YouTube." 2009. 23 Mar. 2014 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYudUBAGGJE> Rizzo, Johnna. Oceans: Dolphins, sharks penguins, and more! National Geographic Kids 2010:18-20, 2628,52-56. Print. Sperry, Armstrong. Call it Courage. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1940. Print.

Knopf 7

Theme: The Sea

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle -Avi Newbery Winner

The Black Pearl -ODell Newbery Winner

Call it Courage -Sperry Newbery Winner

Ship -Macaulay Realistic Fiction And Non Fiction Picture Book

Oceans: Dolphins, sharks, penguins and more! National Geographic Kids Nonfiction

Pearl Harvesting and Pearl Pealing Videos - Youtube

The Shark -Cairdi Poem

Google Earth earth.google.com

Hope is a Thing with Feathers -Dickenson Poem