Lesson 26: The Last Cuentista, Chapters 23–24

Retell and Paraphrase Partner Check

Instruct students to take out their homework annotations from the previous lesson and open their copy of The Last Cuentista to Chapters 23-24.

Transition students into partners.

Say these Directions: With your partner, take turns retelling the key events from Chapters 23 and 24. Use sequence words to keep the order of events clear. After your partner retells an event, paraphrase in your own words what he or she said. Remember that this is a summary, so identify only the key events and ideas in the chapter.

• Ask: What key events or incidents happen in Chapters 23 and 24 that propel the story forward?

  • In Chapter 23, Petra gets the Zetas to agree to follow her directives on the next trip to Sagan. She begins work in the lab on the defoliant and learns from Epsilon-5 that the Collective has ordered the making of a deadly toxin. The chapter ends with Petra realizing Epsilon-5 is her brother. In Chapter 24, Nyla questions the process and subtly threatens Javier. Petra takes control and works on a way to detoxify the poison that Nyla has ordered to be created.

Connection to Today's Learning

• Say: With the key events from Chapters 23-24 fresh in mind, you are ready to analyze the author’s choices in these chapters.

Word Relationships

Display the following target words.

Target words: extract, eradication

• Say: In these chapters, words do more than name things. They can have connotations that sound scientific, neutral, or dangerous. We are going to compare two pairs of related words to hear how small shifts in meaning change tone and perspective.

Introduce Activity: Display and read aloud the target sentences that include the words.

Target Sentences:

“Dangerous to work with, but easy enough to extract.” (p. 218)

“Extract?” I blurt out, hoping he’s confused. “Don’t you mean eradicate? To test an herbicide?” (p. 218)

• Ask: How are extract and eradicate related to each other?

  • Extract means to separate something, like the toxin from the plant. Eradicate means to destroy something. Both terms are being used to describe scientific or chemical processes.

Share Student Connections: Invite students to share the connections they made between the words.

Connecting Words: After students share, prompt students to make connections across the words. Have students reread p. 218, starting with paragraph “I flinch back, not sure how he used every last sample . . .” to the end of the paragraph, “A creature so threatening they’d put everything else on hold . . .”

• Ask: In the context of the story, does extract or eradicate name the more threatening process?

  • Normally, eradicate sounds more threatening because it means destroying something, but in this case, extract is the more threatening process because the substance extracted is highly dangerous and the Collective has plans to use it to harm something or someone, like the “hostiles” (p. 219).

Repeat the process for the following words.

Target words: dilution, concentration

Display the words dilution and concentration. Display and read aloud the target sentences.

Target Sentences:

“The answer is dilution. But there’s not enough water on this ship to dilute this concentration of poison . . .” (p. 229)

• Ask: How are dilution and concentration related to each other in this sentence?

  • These words are related because they both describe the strength of a substance, but dilution means making a substance weaker or thinner, and concentration means a process of making a substance stronger. In this sentence, concentration is nominalized into a noun that means “strong substance”.

Share Student Connections: Invite students to share the connections they made between the words.

Connecting Words: After students share, prompt students to make connections across the words. Instruct students to read the paragraph on p. 229, starting with “As I pull my goggles down, I scan each shelf . . .” to the end.

• Ask: How is Petra using dilution and concentration to “render the toxin useless”? (p. 229)

  • Petra is going to use dilution to break down the concentration of the poison. She needs to dilute the poison in order to make it less concentrated or powerful.

Verify Meaning: Prompt students to use a thesaurus, dictionary, or other reference materials to verify the meanings of the word relationships they have studied.

• Say these Directions: Review the synonyms and antonyms of the words extract, eradicate, dilution, and concentration. What new connections or relationships do these synonyms and antonyms reveal about our target words?

Connection to Today's Learning

• Say: You will use this same attention to word relationships and connotation as you analyze Nyla’s and Petra’s perspectives in Chapters 23-24.

Part A: Jigsaw Reading of Chapters 23-24 (RL.8.3, RL.8.6, L.8.5.c) (15 minutes)

Jigsaw Reading

Transition students into small groups, and then divide the class in half. One half of the small groups will reread and analyze Chapter 23, and the other half of the small groups will reread and analyze Chapter 24. Student groups will become experts on one chapter’s events and the characters’ point of view before they “teach” what they have learned to the other half of the class.

Teach: Analyzing Point of View in Literature

• Say: When I analyze point of view, I don’t just name what a character believes. I also think about how that belief compares to what other characters or I, as the reader, understand. When analyzing point of view in literature, think about the following:

  • What happens? (the event)

  • How does the character interpret it? (their point of view)

  • What do others (or I) understand differently?

  • What effect does that difference create for the reader? (suspense, humor, tension, etc.)

• Say: We analyzed the differences in the points of view of the characters in Animal Farm in Unit 2. We recognized that Napoleon and the other pigs' perspectives were different than that of the other animals and that this difference often created dramatic irony in which we, the reader, knew that the pigs were taking advantage of the other animals, but the other animals did not. We are going to apply that same kind of analysis to Chapters 23 and 24 of The Last Cuentista.

Say these Directions: In your expert group, reread your assigned chapter and discuss the following questions. Be sure to record responses to your assigned questions to be prepared to “teach” another group.

Provide the following questions to the small groups based on whether they are rereading and analyzing Chapter 23 or 24. Instruct the small groups to reread their assigned chapter and then discuss the following questions that are aligned to their chapter. Remind them to record answers.

Chapter 23 Questions

• How do Feathers and Rubio respond to Petra’s cuentos? What does Petra realize that those characters do not? How does this affect the mood of the story?

  • Feathers tells Petra how much she likes the cuento and adds “and the children . . . run and play through the orchards” (p. 209). Rubio says, “I liked how los Viejos helped the poor and homeless after the great pandemic” (p. 209). Petra knows that she didn’t mention these two events in her story, which leads her to understand that the others are “remembering things from home” (p. 209). They do not realize that they have filled in information with events held deep in their memory. Petra’s understanding creates excitement because readers can have hope that the Zetas’ true selves can be recovered. But it also creates a mood of worry or tension because the Zetas might reveal that they still have memories of Earth before they make it to Sagan.

• How is Petra organizing for her plan to move her and the Zetas to Sagan?

  • Petra is organizing carefully by building trust and taking only the least risky actions. She has laid the groundwork with the Zetas in prior chapters by sharing cuentos. She has used this connection to get them to agree “to follow my directions. If you do, I promise to tell you as many cuentos as you want” (p. 209). Additionally, she uses the Collective’s control by telling the Zetas that the Chancellor “asked [her] in private” to “test” a “prospective settlement,” and when Suma questions her, she uses the Collective against the Zetas by addressing their “doubt” about what the “Chancellor says is best” (p. 210) to make them too scared and willing to follow Petra.

• Why does Nyla want to get rid of the “hostiles”? Why does Higuera put the word hostiles in quotation marks in the text? (p. 219)

  • Nyla uses the word hostiles to label people as threats, which makes it easier for her to justify harming them. Higuera puts the word in quotation marks to show that Petra is skeptical of or disagrees with Nyla’s use of the term (p. 219). From Petra’s perspective, the “hostiles” represent the hope that the “First Arrivers” have survived on Sagan. Nyla, on the other hand, sees them as a threat to the Collective, demonstrating different connotations of the word based on perspective.

Chapter 24 Questions

• How does Higuera use dramatic irony in this chapter? What effect does this create for the reader?

  • Higuera uses dramatic irony to create empathy and pity at the beginning of Chapter 24. This is evident in this chapter when Petra realizes Epsilon-5 is really Javier, her brother. Petra gets upset, but he doesn’t understand why she is upset, which creates a sense of empathy for Petra because she finally found her brother, but he doesn’t know who she is or “what they’ve done to his mind” (p. 221). Then, Javier gets upset when he thinks he set the incubator improperly. Petra notes the incongruity in their knowledge: “I can’t tell him, yet his poison was the deadliest ever created.” She goes on to question, “How could he know the ‘dangerous creatures’ they want to exterminate are passengers like us and our parents?” (p. 226) Javier’s lack of understanding about what he is creating in the lab creates a sense of tension and anxiety because Petra knows why Nyla wants the toxin.

• When Nyla asks Javier “Do you still feel useful?” what is she really asking? What does this reveal about how the Collective assigns value? (p. 226)

  • Nyla is really asking whether Javier still has a function the Collective can use. This shows that the Collective assigns value based on usefulness and control instead of humanity. Petra remembers “how the first Monitors so long ago purged [Ben] when he was ‘not useful’” (p. 227). She is desperate to convince Nyla and Crick that he has value and that she needs him to accompany her to the surface because her “mind is sharpening day by day” (p. 227).

• How does Petra’s knowledge that it is Javier complicate her actions and her future plan?

  • Petra’s knowledge complicates everything because Javier is not just another obstacle. Since she knows who he is, her choices become emotional and ethical: they are now tied to family, not just survival. She was originally planning to leave him but now must consider him in her escape plan. Not only must she help him escape, but she wants to tell him she is sorry and “spend the rest of his life making it up to him” (p. 229).

Check for Understanding

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

Part B: Jigsaw Share of Text Analysis (RL.8.4, RL.8.6) (15 minutes)

Regroup students so each new group includes at least one Chapter 23 expert and one Chapter 24 expert. Instruct the newly formed small groups to take turns “teaching” the chapter they reread and analyzed. They should share the questions and analysis they completed for their chapter.

Say these Directions: In your small groups, you now have Chapter 23 experts and Chapter 24 experts. Chapter 23 experts will go first and will share their analysis of the chapter by sharing the questions they discussed and their responses. Chapter 24 experts, your task will be to listen and add additional ideas. Next, Chapter 24 experts, you will share your questions and text analysis, while your Chapter 23 peers will listen and add their ideas and analysis. Record notes about the chapter you did not analyze in your journal.

Provide students with time to share their jigsaw reading analysis in their newly formed small groups.

Then, transition students to a whole-group discussion of the following questions.

• Ask: What does your chapter reveal about what Petra and Nyla value most?

  • Chapter 23 shows Petra values memory and protecting people because she organizes for the escape to Sagan carefully and uses her “pendant” to maintain a connection to her grandmother (p. 207). Chapter 24 shows Nyla values the Collective as a whole rather than individual humans because she judges people by whether they are still “useful” to the Collective. She cares more about people’s function rather than their humanity (p. 226).

• Ask: How do certain words change meaning based on the speaker? For example, consider Nyla’s use of useful and hostiles. What tone does she create through her use of these words?

  • Those words sound cold and controlling when Nyla says them because she reduces people to what they can do for the Collective or whether they are a threat. For example, she asks Epsilon-5 if he still feels “useful” in a tone that makes Petra’s “blood freeze” (p. 226). The tone she creates is clinical, threatening, and dehumanizing. On the other hand, Petra’s perspective is made clear by the use of scare quotes when she says Ben was “purged” because he was “not useful”” to depict her skepticism and disagreement with Nyla’s use of the word (p. 227).

Quick Write

Instruct students to respond to the following prompt in a Quick Write response.

Say these Directions: In three to five sentences, respond to the prompt below. Cite at least two specific details from the chapters.

• How are the differences in Nyla and Petra’s points of view portrayed in Chapters 23 and 24? What do they each value?

  • In the lab scene and when Nyla questions Javier about whether he still feels “useful” (p. 226), Nyla shows she values control and function over human life. In response, Petra observes, “Her words make my blood freeze” (p. 226). She believes he is “as valuable as everyone else” (p. 228). Petra understands Nyla’s perspective and is in direct opposition to it. She sees Javier as her brother and a valuable human being, not because of what he can give to the Collective.

Instruct students to read Chapters 25 and 26 of The Last Cuentista and take notes in their Journal on the following prompt:

• As you read, annotate for this question: How does Petra use storytelling to tap into memory and connection in Chapter 25?