I Survived the Eruption of Mount St. Helens, 1980 Book Study

Are your students in love with the I Survived book series by Lauren Tarshis?

While the I Survived the Eruption of Mount St. Helens, 1980 book is a fun and exciting historical fiction read, as a Washington State native, I designed this novel study to dig deeper into an understanding of the eruption of Mount St. Helens. This book study includes historical background information, a photo analysis activity, as well as chapter reading responses and more! Everything is compiled and organized to make printing easy! This book study is great for literature circles or book clubs.

What's Included:

Chapter Reading Responses (Answer Keys Included!)

Photo Analysis Activity (step by step directions for analyzing 8 photos)

Historical Background Sheet (Where is Washington/Where is Mt. St. Helens)

Reading Passage (Cowlitz Indians)

Reading Passage (The Job of a Lumberjack)

Eruption Maps

Mt. St. Helens Fact Sheet

Literary Elements Sheet

Plot Chart

Characterization Sheet

Scene Sketch

Texting Character Dialogue

Book Review

Student Booklet:

This resource is set up with a printable student booklet that is organized sequentially with chapter reading responses, reading passages, and maps. The chapters are grouped 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14, 15-16. The historical information sheets, reading passages, and maps are placed logically so as to build historical context and deeper understanding as your students read the book. However, instead of printing a booklet, you can always choose the reading responses and pages that work best for your classroom needs.

Reading Responses:

This resource includes reading responses for all chapters (see grouping above). The short answer questions include summarizing the chapter, short answer responses about the text, figurative language, opinion, character analysis, and more. These are found within the student booklet, but can be printed individually to meet your class needs. The reading responses include a variety of short answer, multiple choice, True/False, fill in the blank.

Answer Keys:

An answer key is provided for every reading response page.

Characterization Printables:

This resource includes printable graphic organizers and activities centered around literary elements and characterization. This includes a characterization sheet, scene sketch, and texting dialogue activity.

Photo Analysis:

A picture is worth a thousand words. This photo analysis activity contains 8 photos intended for analysis with the reading of the book. A detailed lesson plan with step by step photo analysis implementation is included, as well as a photo analysis recording sheet for your students.

Building Background & Historical Information:

This resource contains short (one page) reading passages to allow your students to gain a better understanding the Cowlitz Indians, the job of a lumberjack and the geography of Washington.