Falling Leaves

Use these activities to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity. 

ACTIVITY 1: “Talk Show Host”

Falling Leaves follows Adeline’s formative years as the unwanted daughter. Her story centers on the actions and feelings of those around her. If these characters were to appear on a talk show, what might they say? What questions would the host ask them?

• Part 1: As the talk show host, what questions would you ask of the characters in Falling Leaves? Questions should address character traits and/or motivation.
• Part 2: Choose one character and gather as many details about their backstory as possible. Answer the talk show host’s questions from that character’s point of view.

Teaching Suggestion: The main goal of this activity is to allow readers to fully inhabit the story, interpreting it from the inside by becoming part of the story’s world. If given enough time, this activity can be performed with the teacher taking on the role of the talk show host and interviewing students after assigning each student a character.

Paired Text Extension

Students can compare “Cinderella” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm to Falling Leaves, examining the similarities in characters, situations, and motivations. This short story can be analyzed with the same activity to show similarities and contrasts in the protagonists’ lifestyle and how the supporting characters play a big part in their development.

ACTIVITY 2: “Keywords”

Chinese characters and Chinese proverbs recur throughout Falling Leaves. They reinforce the power of language and storytelling exhibited by Adeline, Ye Ye, and Aunt Baba. In this activity, you will chronicle the “lifespan” of a Chinese word or phrase throughout the narrative.

Part 1: Select a keyword worth following.

• Ask yourself the following questions:
• Does its usage change or deepen in each mention?
• How might your chosen word focus on the text’s larger ideas and themes?
• Consult the Oxford English Dictionary, or any other dictionary at hand, to investigate the word’s meaning, etymology, related forms, and historical usages.
• Why did the author select this specific word and not another?
• What ideas/values does the word convey? Does it vary or change? Why and to what effect?

Part 2: Write a paragraph or two about what you’ve discovered.

• Include: what questions occurred to you as you followed the career of your keyword? What larger historical/cultural/linguistic importance does your word inhabit? What thematic/conceptual issues does it evoke in the text?

Teaching Suggestion: Write each chosen keyword on the board for a class discussion. Have students share their findings. Look for patterns connecting the keywords. This activity can be further developed by assigning a rereading to focus attention on those words, by discussing the importance of the history of words, and/or by giving a writing assignment that builds on the keyword activity. Reference “Raymond Williams’s Introduction to the First Edition (1976) of Keywords” for further background information on the importance and development of keywords.