25 Ways to Participate Without Teaching
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Orem Public Library is thrilled to be participating in the Big Read, a program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts meant to restore reading to the center of American culture. We want citizens of Orem of all ages to participate, and would like to encourage you and your students to be involved. This list is meant to help you involve your students in the Big Read, regardless of what grade level or subject you teach. There are ideas here that could be adapted for use in many classrooms.

1. Read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and bring your copy to class so your students can see you are reading with the rest of Orem.
2. Display posters and advertisements for the Big Read in your classroom.
3. Offer incentives to students who are reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
4. Offer incentives to students who attend Big Read lectures and activities at the library.
5. Watch and review the film version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with your class.
6. Use passages from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to compare or contrast content or style with another literary work.
7. Use passages from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for vocabulary, grammar and writing activities in class.
8. Read a Southern folktale and discuss what makes Southern literature unique.
9. Use passages from the novel to illustrate literary elements such as simile, metaphor and symbolism.
10. Have students write about events from their own childhood using Tom Sawyer's s memories as a model.
11. Compare life in 1840's Missouri to that in Utah during the same time period.
12. Use descriptions of characters in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as models for students to write character sketches.
13. Discuss how the characters in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer respond to continuity and change in their community.
14. Create a work of art based on a passage from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
15. Develop and perform a monologue as a minor character in the novel.
16. Make a map of St. Petersburg based on Tom's description of his hometown.
17. Adapt a scene from the novel into a screen play.
18. Design costumes for scene from the novel, researching fashions from the time.
19. Design a set for a scene from the novel.
20. Create an original book cover for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
21. Illustrate a scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
22. Discuss the unique ecology of caves, perhaps using Timpanogos cave as an example. Ask students to imagine the interior of McDougal's cave, and what animals and plants might be found there.
23. Read "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" or another of Mark Twain's great short stories with your class.
24. Analyze St. Petersburg's community health. How do characters in the novel help or hinder a healthy community?
25. Analyze the role of alcohol in the novel. How does the St. Petersburg community deal with substance abuse in their town?