A Little Princess

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

“Sara’s Nicknames”

Students will revisit three scenes in which other young characters bestow nicknames upon Sara Crewe and discuss in a group how each nickname reflects Sara’s emotional arc in the story.

Nicknames can reveal a lot about both the person who has the nickname and those who have given the name to the person. In this activity, you will revisit three key scenes in which other young characters give Sara a nickname and write about how the nickname reveals both Sara’s personality and that of the people who give it to her. Finally, you will meet in a small group and discuss what each nickname tells about Sara’s emotional journey at that point in the story.

• Reread the scenes in which Sara is nicknamed “Princess Sara” (Chapter 6); “The-little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar” (Chapter 10); and “the un-fairy princess” (Chapter 17).
• Write two paragraphs for each nickname: one stating what the nickname tells about Sara, and the other stating what the nickname tells about the characters who call her this.
• In a small group, discuss your conclusions and decide what each nickname tells about Sara’s emotional journey at that point in the story.
• Finally, choose one member of your group to report the results of your discussion to the class.

Teaching Suggestion: You might want to photocopy the three scenes to share with students for easy reference. Provide enough contextual sentences to orient students as to the speaker or speakers in the scene.

Differentiation Suggestion: English language learners might benefit from sentence frames in addition to photocopies of the relevant scenes. Frames might be worded as follows: “Sara gets this nickname because she is ___________________.  The person or people giving Sara the nickname is/are __________________. They give her the nickname because they _____________________. The nickname shows that at this point in the story, Sara is__________________________.