Ninth Ward

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.

“Hurricane Timeline”

Ninth Ward is a work of historical fiction: The fictitious story and characters are affected by a real-world historical event, Hurricane Katrina. In this activity, match the plotline events to historical events before, during, and after the storm and flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

• You will need poster paper, art paper, or a large section of whiteboard or chalkboard; a copy of Ninth Ward; access to “Hurricane Katrina: The Essential Timeline” from National Geographic (or another day-by-day timeline account of the storm’s events).
• Create a 2-column graphic organizer to show historical timeline events alongside plotline events from the novel.
• Begin with Tuesday, August 23, 2005. In one column of your organizer, summarize the historical events you read about in the timeline article. Alongside your summary, in the other column, use a series of bulleted plot points to note Lanesha’s actions, thoughts, and conflicts for that day (Chapter 3 in the novel).
• Continue with each day of the timespan of the storm and initial flooding, up through and including Wednesday, August 31. Be sure to label your events and summaries with the correct date in sequence.

Teaching Suggestion: Note that the novel’s last chapter includes both August 30 and 31; other dates in the timeline span more than one chapter. Students should skim chapters to recall plot occurrences in a day-by-day fashion or use notes from class study to recall events. A third column, if time allows, might be dedicated to drawn images of symbolic objects important to each day of Lanesha’s conflict: the pre-algebra book, the bathtub, the axe. After students have a chance to compare timeline work, discuss challenges they overcame in completing the activity and new discoveries they made or conclusions they drew as a result of looking at the text in this day-by-day study. Connect ideas to the themes of Fear in the Face of Fortitude, Gratitude for Support and Help from Loved Ones, and Death as a Part of Life.

Paired Text Extension

Read the poem “Hurricane” by David Bottoms. Note as you read the events detailed in each of the poem’s numbered sections.

• What common or similar images appear in both the poem and Ninth Ward?
• How does the sequence of the poem compare to your timeline of Lanesha’s actions and conflicts? How does the tone of the speaker of the poem compare to the tone of Lanesha’s narrative at the approach of the storm? At its strongest point? At its conclusion?

Teaching Suggestion: As time allows, consider having students add events or images from the poem to the timeline they created in the activity.