I greatly enjoyed A Very Large Expanse of Sea, and think that it would be a successful novel used within the ESL classroom. I may come back later and write out a teaching guide for this book, but for now, please check out the Ten Principles analysis worksheet below. In this worksheet, I have addressed part of my ten principles - mainly the ones that are directly related to classroom instruction. A Very Large Expanse of Sea is about Shirin, an angry and isolated hijabi teenager living in a post 9/11 America. Shirin's anger at her circumstances and the people she's surrounded by are evident throughout the narration. Despite being significantly older than Shirin, I still felt myself connecting deeply with her character and becoming angry on her behalf at all of the injustices that she faces while navigating high school. The author, Tahereh Mafi, has said that this book is a deeply biographical account of her own time in high school, and this fact shines throughout the writing. A Very Large Expanse of Sea is a novel that touches gently on first love, confronting privilege, letting go of anger, and letting people in. The only drawback I can think of is that the majority of the plot takes place in the last 20% of the novel. Before that, most of the novel deals with Shirin's growing relationship with Ocean. This is definitely a character-driven, as opposed to plot-driven. Overall, I would recommend this book for the ESL classroom, and think that many students would connect with the overall themes. Click below for the official reading guide (not mine) for A Very Large Expanse of Sea, as well as my Ten Principles analysis which discusses the themes, audience, scaffolding, and accessibility of this book. P.S. Here's a very cute video of the author Tahereh Mafi and her husband (author Ransom Riggs) doing a FAQ about writing.
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AuthorWritings from an ESL instructor at a Big Ten university in the Midwest. Archives
October 2019
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