Lesson 25: The Last Cuentista, Chapters 21–22

Turn and Talk

Transition students into pairs to reflect on the second Essential Question of the unit.

• Say: We are now beginning our investigation of the second Essential Question of the unit, in which we will explore more deeply how storytelling impacts not only Petra but also the other characters and their futures.

Display the Investigation 2 Essential Question:

• How do stories help communities survive change and imagine a future worth building?

Say these Directions: Turn and talk with your partner about the question below:

• When communities face loss, displacement, or change, how might stories or storytelling help?

  • (Student responses may vary.) Stories can help people remember who they are when everything else changes. They can carry history, values, and hope, especially if a community has been separated from home or from its past.

Connection to Today's Learning

• Say: As we discuss Chapters 21–22 today, continue to think about the power of storytelling and stories, and notice how Petra’s stories impact others on the ship.

Using Context Clues

Target Words: relic, antique

Display the target words.

• Say: We’re learning about the words relic and antique. These words appear in Chapters 21–22 of The Last Cuentista. Let’s explore how they are used and what they mean.

Display the Target Sentences: Display the key sentences from the text with the target words relic and antique.

• “Voxy’s head drops. ‘It is not fair. The Collective has no cuentos, only rules. I mean, Nyla read one to me once. Not a cuento, like yours.’ His eyes widen. ‘This one was a relic and was in what’s called a book, made of paper.” (p. 188)

• “An antique keypad like the one Mom had on her greenhouse is next to the doorlatch.” Voxy presses 2061, the year we left Earth, and the door slides open.” (p. 193)

Read the sentences aloud.

• Say: First, we'll look at the word relic. Let’s use our skills with context clues to work with this unfamiliar word.

Read the Surrounding Sentences

Display or reread the paragraph after the key sentence.

• Say: Follow along as I read the last two paragraphs on p. 188. As we reread, listen for words or ideas that help you explain what the word relic means.

Identify Context Clues

Have students work with a partner to answer the following questions:

Say these Directions: Work with a partner to answer the following questions.

• Ask: What is Voxy talking about when he mentions the relic?

  • He is talking about a story, or “cuento,” in a book.

• Ask: Which words or phrases help explain the target word relic?

  • book, related to Earth, Anything I could hold

Call on students to name the exact words they used as context clues. Annotate or underline those clues on the displayed text.

Infer a Meaning

• Ask: Based on these clues, what does the word relic most likely mean in this text?

  • something old or outdated, like a book

Test the Meaning in Context

Direct students to substitute the inferred meaning back into the key sentence.

• Ask: If we replace the word with our meaning, does the sentence still make sense?

Verify Definition

• Say: Check your inferred definition using a dictionary or other reference material.

Have students refer to a dictionary or thesaurus to verify meaning as needed.

Repeat this process for the word antique. Refer back to the target sentence.

Say these Directions: Work with a partner to answer the following questions about the target word antique.

• Ask: What is happening in this part of the text?

  • Petra and Voxy are going to his room to find the books, and they have to use a keypad to get into the room.

• Ask: Which words or phrases help explain the target word antique?

  • The sentence says that her mom had a keypad like it in her greenhouse, but that would have been over 300 years ago, so it makes it seem like the keypad is old.

Infer a Meaning

• Ask: Based on these clues, what does the word antique most likely mean in this text?

  • an old or ancient object

Confirm or revise the inferred meaning as a class. Have students refer to a dictionary or thesaurus to verify meaning as needed.

• Say: Now that you have tested your guess, use a dictionary to verify the meaning of antique.

Quick Application

Have students work with a partner to create a new sentence that combines the words relic and antique.

• Say: Work with your partner to create a new sentence that combines the meanings of relic and antique since their definitions are closely related.

Connection to Today's Learning

• Say: The words relic and antique provide a different perspective of the book and the keypad that are described in the text. You will use your understanding of this perspective to better comprehend this part of the novel.

Part A: Discovering “Relics” (RL.8.3, RL.8.4, L.8.5.c) (15 minutes)

Organize the class into small groups of three or four students. Have students work within their groups to analyze Chapters 21 and 22 using the questions below.

Say these Directions: Begin your small-group discussion of Chapters 21 and 22 by responding to the questions below. Revisit the chapters as needed to support your thinking.

• What key events happen in Chapter 21?

  • Petra steals the filtration straws and makes a plan in her mind to leave the shuttle and take Feathers, Suma, and Rubio with her to live on Sagan. She has a dream about el Conejo and Lita, and this time, she follows the rabbit. Voxy wakes her up, revealing that he has heard her cuentos and that he has seen a book. He agrees to take her to the “relic,” or the book (p. 188).

• What key events happen in Chapter 22?

  • Petra and Voxy discover the room of relics. Petra also discovers that many of the inhabitants’ original belongings are here, even Javier’s sweatshirt. Petra finds Javier’s book, but Voxy says she has to put it back. Nyla nearly catches them, but Voxy covers for them. Petra makes it out of the relic room and heads back to her quarters when she hears Nyla talk about “hostiles” and call them the “first–.” Petra realizes the first arrivals have made it to Sagan.

• What is Petra’s plan, and how is she feeling about it? What does the allusion to the Pied Piper suggest about her role in her plan?

  • Petra’s plan is to lead Feathers, Suma, and Rubio away from the Collective after she has already drawn them in with her stories. She says she will guide them like “the Pied Piper” (p. 185), which suggests that she will be able to get them to follow her voluntarily. She feels bad “about misleading them. But they deserve to know everything about what’s happened to our families” (p. 185), which shows she has conflicting feelings about taking them to live on Sagan. Overall, she seems both determined to help them and aware of the risk involved.

• What does Voxy’s reaction to Petra’s cuentos suggest about the power of Petra’s storytelling?

  • Voxy’s reaction to the cuentos suggests the power of Petra’s storytelling is so appealing that he is willing to risk just about everything to hear them. He says, “Zeta-1, if I show you where they [relics] are, do you promise to keep telling me your cuentos?” (p. 189). His reaction also shows that Voxy, despite being created and brainwashed by the Collective, remains attuned to his own feelings and desires, knowing that the Collective “has no cuentos, only rules” (p. 188). He knows what he likes, which is hearing the cuentos, and will do what he must to hear them, which shows that he is willing to follow his own individual desires.

• How do Petra’s cuentos begin to influence Voxy?

  • Petra’s cuentos begin to influence Voxy by drawing him in and changing how he thinks. He admits, “Nyla would never let me come listen” (p. 188). He is willing to break the rules to hear stories. Petra also realizes that “Voxy is becoming less like the Collective” (p. 188), suggesting that the stories are encouraging him to question rules and think more independently.

• How does the word relic carry different connotations when used by Nyla versus Voxy? What do these differences reveal about each character’s values, and why might the author intentionally use the same word in contrasting ways?

  • When Nyla uses the word relics, she treats the past as something harmful and dangerous. She says Voxy needs to “forget about the relics” because nothing “good has ever come from those things” (p. 202). She goes on to say that the relics were “possessions” that were “part of the old Earth” that led to “greed and selfishness” (p. 202). In contrast, Voxy uses the word relics with curiosity and care. His “eyes widen” and “he leans in, whispering” about the “relics” (p. 189), which suggests curiosity and a quiet sense of excitement about these objects. Additionally, he describes the “relic” of the book as “magical” and containing “people and places” that “are all so different from one another,” demonstrating that he values individuality and not “being told by the Collective” what to do (p. 194). Nyla and Voxy’s use of the word “relic” demonstrates the Collective’s values about conformity and forgetting the past in opposition to individuality and memory.

Invite members from the small groups to share brief responses to each question.

Part B: Storytelling’s Evolution (RL.8.2, RL.8.3) (15 minutes)

Give One, Get One

Students engage in a Give One, Get One discussion routine to share ideas about developing themes in Chapters 21 and 22.

Before they begin, instruct students to independently consider how storytelling has evolved from the beginning of the novel to Chapter 22.

Say these Directions: In Chapter 1, Petra claims that she will be “a storyteller” (p. 5). Think about how storytelling has changed over the course of the book, and independently record your responses to the following questions:

• How has Petra’s storytelling evolved over the course of the novel?

• What is the impact of her storytelling on Petra and the other characters?

• How does Petra’s evolving storytelling and its impact develop a theme in the novel?

Consider displaying the following sentence frames to support students with their analysis.

• Earlier in the novel, Petra experiences _____ as a storyteller; however, in Chapters 21 and 22, she experiences _____.

• At first it seems that _________. For example, _____. However, Chapters 21 and 22 reveal that _____.

Provide time for students to consider these ideas independently and to write some notes before they engage in the Give One, Get One Routine.

Instruct students to engage in a Give One, Get One Routine with at least two other peers.

• Say: When you have finished recording your responses to the questions, engage in a Give One, Get One discussion by sharing your responses to the questions.

  • At the beginning of the novel, storytelling is Petra’s private way to survive grief and hold on to her identity. She then begins sharing stories with Rubio, Suma, and Feathers, extending that impact to others. In Chapters 21–22, Voxy secretly listens to cuentos and risks getting caught, showing that the stories are reaching beyond others, beyond the Zetas. The impact is that storytelling not only provides a pathway for survival but also enables Petra and others to remember the past (stories from Earth) and to hear tales of individual bravery and sacrifice like Blancaflor and Los Viejos. The stories provide Petra with the confidence that she needs to lead the Zetas away from the Collective. Several of the themes that are developed include storytelling as a connection to the past and cultural memory. Storytelling also becomes a form of resistance since the cuentos are not allowed by the Collective. Storytelling is a way to share individualism and acts of bravery.

After the Give One, Get One routine, instruct the students to meet with a new partner to discuss the following questions.

Say these Directions: After the Give One, Get One routine, meet with a new partner to discuss the following questions.

• In Petra’s dream, what choice does she face about following el Conejo, and what does the dream suggest about that decision? How does this connect to her decision to follow Voxy?

  • In the dream, Petra must decide whether to stay where she feels “safe” with Lita or follow el Conejo into the “dangerous” unknown (p. 186). Lita encourages her to follow, suggesting that what seems dangerous may actually be part of a necessary “journey.” Petra chooses to follow, even though she is unsure, and the rabbit leads her to “the middle of nowhere,” showing that the path is uncertain and may not bring immediate reward (p. 186). This connects to her decision to follow Voxy because she is again choosing to move forward into something unknown in order to learn more.

• What “relics” does Petra discover beside Javier’s book? What is symbolic about what she finds?

  • Petra finds the original items the inhabitants brought with them on the ship, including Javier’s “jeans and GG Gang sweatshirt” and her “pendant” (pp. 199–200). The finding of these “relics” shows that the past cannot be erased completely. And Petra finding her pendant is symbolic because it connects her to Lita and the idea that they can still be “together” even when they are apart (pp. 2–5).

Provide students with a confidence continuum (i.e., 1–5). As needed, model how to demonstrate a level of confidence using the continuum.

Quick Write

Instruct students to reflect on their learning from the lesson by responding to the Quick Write prompt.

Say these Directions: Complete the following prompt. Use at least two examples from Chapters 21-22 to explain your answer.

• In Chapters 21–22, there is hope for the future because _________________.

  • Storytelling creates a new possibility for the future through Voxy and the hidden relics. When Petra tells Voxy he shouldn’t return, he responds, “But where else can I hear a cuento?” (p. 188) Even as a member of the Collective, stories impact him and draw him in. When he leads Petra to the hidden room filled with relics, she finds preserved objects from Earth, including personal belongings and books. These details suggest that while the system is controlled, there are still traces of the past and individuals who respond to them, which opens the possibility for something different in the future. There is also hope for the future because Petra overhears Nyla talking about “hostiles” who might already live on Sagan, which shows that the “first ship” might have made it (pp. 205–206).

Instruct students to read Chapters 23–24 in The Last Cuentista and take notes in their Journal on the following prompt:

• As you read, annotate for key events and incidents that propel the action of the story forward.