Copper Sun Complete Novel Study

This novel unit contains activities for teaching the novel, Copper Sun, by Sharon Draper.

Synopsis: Copper Sun is a poignant novel of historical fiction.
White strangers enter 15-year old Amari’s village in Africa. But the strangers are not there to celebrate. Instead, they capture and enslave the youngest and strongest villagers. The rest are killed. The white men are slave traders. As they wipe out Amari’s village, her life is destroyed.
Somehow, Amari endures the ghastly Middle Passage and lands in South Carolina. She is quickly bought by a plantation owner, as a gift for his 16-year old son. Amari dreams of escape while struggling to hold on to the memories of her former life in Africa.
Enduring horrific physical and mental pain, Amari finds friendship in unlikely places. The plantation owner’s wife, an indentured servant, and a small kitchen cook all befriend her. Fearing for her life, after a series of gruesome events, Amari finally embarks on an arduous journey to freedom.

This guide separates the novel into 7 sections, for reading over multiple days.

Included in this Resource:
• teacher pages
o vocabulary with definitions
o questions for oral discussion about plot, characters, settings
o practice with comprehension strategies of summarizing, making connections, predictions, and inferences, visualizing, understanding text structure, asking questions, determining importance, identifying the author’s purpose, and synthesizing
o post-reading in-depth discussion questions
• student pages for written answers to discussion questions
• suggestions for end-of-book projects
• graphic organizers for:
o analyzing themes
o character growth
o project planning