Ella Minnow Pea

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

What does it mean to engage in self-censorship? In what situations is it necessary for you to be careful of what you say? What are the consequences for failing to self-censor? Are there downsides to restricting yourself from expression?

Teaching Suggestion: Censorship can be a tricky subject for people to discuss, especially within the contexts of book banning and changes to education. Consider explaining that in the novel, the inhabitants of Nollop are asked to sensor both their thoughts—as is evident in government attempts to identify civil unrest—and the actual language they use to express those thoughts.

• “Code-Switching” explains the way that people switch from one linguistic code to another in order to fit different cultural, professional, and social contexts.
• “Why a Horror Film Starring Winnie the Pooh Has Run Into Trouble in Hong Kong” describes a unique case of government censorship that has some parallels with the censorship that occurs within the book.

Short Activity

Ella Minnow Pea features characters whose language is significantly restricted by their government. Pick one vowel (a, e, i, o, or u) OR three consonants. Write a letter to a friend without using the vowel or consonants. Note: You cannot use textspeak to replace words. For example, you cannot replace for with 4 or your with ur.

Teaching Suggestion: The goal of this activity is to highlight the cognitive/linguistic struggles faced by the characters in the novel. You might guide students by doing the activity along with them or by assigning them letters. After students complete this activity, it may be helpful to engage in a guided discussion to explore the way certain words have impacted the meaning of their letters. Then, you might lead students to think about how a restricted vocabulary alters their thoughts. Consider accessing or sharing the following or similar resources to support students in this activity:

• Gadsby is a 50,000-word book that has been written without use of the letter e and is an example of an intellectual effort to intentionally exclude certain letters from use.
• Visuwords is a platform that helps represent words visually, allowing users to search words and generate word webs that include dictionary definitions, synonyms, and antonyms.

Differentiation Suggestion: This activity can be adapted for verbal rather than written practice. Assign students common words and have them chat with their classmates without using that word (examples include the, but, she, etc.). This will give students the opportunity to experience verbal self-censorship and understand the cognitive and linguistic difficulties faced by Nollop residents during their daily activities. Similarly, for smaller groups, students can be asked to tell stories to the whole group while trying to exclude their assigned word.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

When was the last time you believed you could not say what you really wanted to? What was the situation? How did it make you feel? What was the consequence of speaking or not speaking?

Teaching Suggestion: The inhabitants of Nollop are restricted in what they say and how they say it. Faced with property seizures and exile if they violate the rules, many of them live in a state of fear and dejection. Engaging with this prompt can provide students an opportunity to compare and contrast how different people and situations warrant different responses when such restrictions are in place. In addition, consider the possibility that young adult audiences might be particularly sensitive to the social ramifications of speaking out.