Preview Of Main Ideas
Each year, thousands of books for children appear on bookshelves. Yet, it seems that children today read less. An avid reader in my childhood, I'm excited by the wealth and breadth of choices offered to my students. I want them to spend some of their time in my classes reading. I expect them to experience the adventures of Geography and traveling the world using literature as the tool. A good example of this experience would be to read Jean Craighead George's novel Julie Of The Wolves.

Connection With The Curriculum
These activities may be used in Social Studies or Geography classes. Other subject areas that overlap are Language Arts and Literature.

Teaching Level: Grades 5 to 8.

Objectives #1: The student will be able to read for understanding and comprehension.  (Mapping activity)

Essential Element: The World in Spatial Terms.

Standard #1: How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.

Knowledge Statement # 2: How to make and use maps.

Skill Set #2: Acquiring geographic information.

Skill #2: Use maps to collect and/or compile geographic information.

Theme: Location and Movement.

Objective #2: The student will be able to create a Geography poem based on geographic information in the novel.

Essential Element: Places and Regions.

Standard #6: How culture and experience influence people's perceptions of places and regions.

Knowledge Statement #1: How personal characteristics affect our perception of places and regions.

Skill Set #4: Analyzing geographic information.

Skill #3: Interpret and synthesize information obtained from a variety of sources.

Theme: Place, Region, Human-Environment Interaction.

Materials
1. Children's trade book Julie Of The Wolves. (See list of books at end)
2. Maps (in trade book activities, texts, or see list of "On-line Map Resources" at end)
3. Lined and unlined paper (white or color)
4. Colored markers/pencils (standard pens/pencils, too)

1. Advise students to map the various locations in the book while they read the novel. (See attached map)
2. (Optional) You may choose to white-out some labels on the map depending upon level of students.
3. (Optional) Students may work alone or in cooperative groups.
4. Using the novel students create a Geography poem based on geographical information from the story.

Format For Geography Poem:
Line 1: Name of place
Line 2: What does it look like? (3 items)
Line 3: Where is it? (3 items)
Line 4: What is there? (3 items)
Line 5: A question about the place.
Line 6: What does it feel like to be there? (3 items)
Line 7: What can you do there? (3 items)
Line 8: Synonym for the place.

1. Using the book, a Venn diagram (see at end) is filled in by students as they read the novel. Students compare and contrast Myax and the wolves. The overlapping section of the Venn diagram indicates the characteristics which remain the same for both.
2. Students could research the geography of the Alaskan Arctic - specifically the tundra. What is the temperature range? What plants and animals and inhabit the region? How do the native Eskimos of the region live?

Julie of the Wolves

Synopsis:

As the novel opens, Miyax (Julie), a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl, is attempting to communicate with a pack of wolves. Having run away from her cruel child-husband Daniel, she hopes to reach Point Hope where she can take the ship the North Star to San Francisco. There she hopes to live with the family of the girl who has been her pen-pal. However, on her way to her destination, she finds herself lost and hungry on the Alaskan tundra. Her survival depends upon being able to make Amaroq, leader of the pack of wolves, understand her needs. After much careful observation and practice imitating the wolves’ behavior, Miyax is able to "talk wolf." She is adopted by the pack and treated like an orphaned pup.

She passes her days learning how to deal with hunger in an unnavigable land and accepting the challenge of living in harmony with the wolves and other wildlife. She also thinks about the crumbling way of life she left behind as evidence in the disappearance of her father, Kapugen; the Americanization of Mekoryuk, the town where she had lived with Aunt Martha; and the growing decadence of the Eskimo man, as seen in Naka, her drunken father-in-law. She also thinks hopefully about the new opportunities offered by San Francisco with its electricity, skyscrapers, and gleaming bridges.

As she gets closer to Point Hope, Miyax realizes that she would have to sacrifice her contact with the land in order to start her new life in San Francisco. Near the end of her journey, when Amaroq is shot for sport by some hunters in a plane, her plans to go to San Francisco no longer seem valid. She cannot become a part of what killed the magnificent Amaroq. And her estrangement from the Americanized Eskimos in Mekoryuk is so complete that she decides to set up house on the tundra living a traditional Eskimo life.

Once settled in her new igloo, she hosts a traveling Eskimo family headed by Atik. He tells Miyak of a man named Kapugen in his town of Kangik. Hope wells up within Miyak and and she goes to Kangik to find her father and recreate her life with him.

When she reaches the town, she finds that her father has married a white woman and has abandoned many of the traditional ways. Her hopes of starting a new life with him are shattered. In sadness, she takes Tornait, her bird, and heads out alone across the tundra.

When Tornait dies, she realizes that she has no choice but to go back to Kapugen and live the life of an Americanized Eskimo. She thus becomes Julie Edwards and leaves the spirit of Miyax behind on the tundra.

VENN DIAGRAM

In Part I, Miyax links her survival to the life of the wolves.  By learning their language and behaviors, she tries to make herself act like the wolves.  Complete the chart to see the ways that Miyax is like the wolves and the ways that she is different.

(The Wreckers includes a map.)

Loomis, Christine. Across America. Hyperion, 2000.

• Seasons relate to geography and growing up.

Mikaelsen, Ben. Stranded. Hyperion, 1996.

• Koby, a young girl still recovering from an accident, finds herself stranded with two pilot whales one night in Key West, Florida.

(Inspired by the real-life story of two stranded pilot whales.)

Naidoo, Beverly. Journey to Joburg. Lippincott, 1985.

• When illness strikes the family, a young girl must travel from her small village to find her mother in the large city of Johannesburg, South Africa.(includes a map and author’s endnotes.)

Ryan, Mary Elizabeth. Alias. Aladdin, 1997.

• Toby’s mother is hiding which means Toby spends his entire life traveling across the United States never staying long enough to know anyone.

Rylant, Cynthia. The Islander. Yearling, 1998.

• Daniel must go to live with his grandfather who lives on an island in British Columbia when his parents die. He believes he meets a mermaid.

Sachar Louis. Holes. Dell Yearling, 1998.

• Stanley travels to a memorable boys’ detention at Camp Green Lake where he spends each day digging holes five feet wide and five feet deep.

Say, Allen. Grandfather’s Journey. Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

• Featuring full-color paintings in a short format, this story focuses on a Japanese-American who shares the life of his grandfather who lived in the U.S.A. and Japan.

Weir, Bob and Weir, Wendy. Panther Dream: A Story of the African Rain Forest. Hyperion Books for Children, 1991.

• A boy must search for food in the African rain forest. This book provides detailed paintings to enhance the text. (Includes a map and author’s list of native plants and animals.)

Geography and Map Division (Library of Congress)

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gnrlhome.html

• Collections of historical and contemporary maps

North America Map Archive (University of Oregon)

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~atlas/america/maps.html

• U.S. historical maps including slavery and territorial expansion.

Oddens’ Bookmarks (Utrecht University, Netherlands)

http://oddens.geog.uu.nl/index.html (Utrecht University, Netherlands)

• Links to map collections throughout the world

Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection (University of Texas)

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/map_collection_guide.html

• Collections of maps by major regions

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