Ideas for using My Name is River as a learning resource

My Name is River is a story about friendship, home, wilderness, poverty and always trying find a way forward.  It lends itself to use in the classroom for many subjects. 
English
 
  1. Towards the end of the book Dylan sees a newspaper with a photo of Lucia and Mustafa back at the field camp. Write the article which would appear with this photo, explaining everything that has happened. Start with the most important information – a summary – then go on to give more details.
  2. Choose a character in My Name is River (other than Dylan, the protagonist) and narrate a scene from their point of view. For example, you could write what Lucia is thinking when she and Dylan are in the digger. Or write her impressions as they run through the Manaus Opera House. Or what does she think when she first sees Dylan? 
  3. Theme: ‘Much useful things in bin,’ Lucia said. ‘Just because person throw something,’ here she stopped and stood a little straighter, with even more dignity, ‘- or someone – away, doesn’t mean thing - or someone – not useful.’ Why does this make Dylan sad? Can you think of a theme that Lucia personifies?
  4. What is the significance of the rivers in the story? What effect do they have on Dylan, both the one at home, and the Amazon river?  
  5. Write a letter to an aunt who has promised you a trip abroad. Tell her why you would like – or not like – to go to the Amazon rainforest, giving a vivid description of what it would be like to spend time there.

Geography

  1. Look in the atlas and draw your own map of Brazil and mark Dylan’s, Floyd’s and Lucia’s journeys on it, including Salvador, Manaus and the field camp.
  2. How many countries does the Amazon river flow through? Where does it start? Why is it a ‘stripy’ river as Dylan calls it?  Draw a map of South America focussing on the countries that border Brazil and the Amazon river.
  3. When Dylan climbs a tree in the rainforest and it rains, he wonders if the rain came all the way from Wales, like he did. Explain how he could have been right.

Maths

  1. Brazil is 8.5 million square kilometres, with a population of 208 million people. How much space would each person have if it was shared out equally?
  2. Find out how big the Amazonian rainforest is. What proportion of Brazil is rainforest?  
  3. If Lisbon is 6488 km from Salvador, and it takes 8 hours 30 mins on the fastest plane, how fast is the plane flying? 
  4. If Salvador is three hours behind Lisbon, and Dylan and Floyd leave Lisbon at midnight, what time is it when they arrive in Salvador. Remember that the flight takes 8 hours 30 minutes!

​Creative Writing
  1. Write a poem about the sounds in the rainforest. Read chapter 22 and try to imagine the sounds. Use onomatopoeia, alliteration and metaphor to try to capture the sounds.
  2. Write a page describing Lucia’s first day in a real school. Try to capture how surprised she is by everything. Try to include details which are obvious to you, but which are amazing to her – remember she has never been inside a real classroom before, and not often inside any sort of building other than a broken down bus and a simple hut.  
  3. Write a page about Dylan and his friends sitting in his treehouse at last. What is it like inside? Are there windows? What do they all chat about? Use plenty of dialogue to bring all the characters alive.
  4. Write a diary entry for Miss Crassy. Imagine how excited she is about her project, and how she tells herself that it doesn’t matter what she does to achieve her goals. 
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History

  1. Research the Manaus Opera House. When was it built? Where did the money come from? What other buildings does it compare with? Why was a huge, Parisian-like opera house built on the banks of the Amazon river? Which famous people have appeared there? 
  2. Why is Portuguese the official language of Brazil, when Portugal is thousands of miles away in Europe? How many other languages are spoken in Brazil? Why isn’t the official language one of the indigenous languages?​
  3. The Amazonian rainforest has been inhabited for 10,000 years. What do you think people would have eaten one thousand years ago? How would they have lived? What might they have had for tools?
PHSE

  1. Poverty. What does that mean in the UK? What does it mean to Lucia? Does feeling poor depend on what people around you have, or is it an absolute? If everyone had as little as Lucia, would they still feel poor?
  2. Expectations of gender. Dylan is surprised that Lucia wants to learn how to drive the digger. Then he wonders whether other girls would like to, if they had the chance. What other activities do we expect only one gender to enjoy?  
  3. Children and animals are treated very badly in one scene in the book. One character is more shocked by the bad treatment of children than they are by the bad treatment of animals. Are we right to place people above animals? How important is it that animals are treated well?
  4. The end justifies the means – or does it? If you want to achieve something you think is good, does it matter if you do something bad to get there? Which character believes the end justifies the means? Which character does not believe this? Can you feel good about something wonderful you achieved if you had to hurt a living creature or damage something along the way?

STEM

  1. In the story there is a digger, a speed boat and a motorbike. Write the instructions for how to drive the digger, following Dylan’s explanation and make up instructions for how to drive the other two.
  2. Why are the dolphins in the Amazon river pink? Why are some of the frogs blue? Can you research these and explain the biology behind these things.  
  3. Why do howler monkeys make such a frightening noise when they have found food? Can you think of a reason?

Art / DT
  1. Look up the Manaus Opera House to research how many different materials it was built from. Some of them came from abroad. Can you explain why?
  2. Draw a design for Dylan’s treehouse. How big will it be? Will it have windows? Is there a door? Will there be any shelves for anything useful? Can they really sleep there and if so, can you design it so that there is room? 
  3. ​Design a T-shirt covered with pictures of animals from the Amazonian rainforest. Where would a snake go? A sloth? Would you include spiders?


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