Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

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.

“Lillian’s Dying Wishes”

After reading about Nanabush’s attempts to carry out Lillian’s secret dying wishes, students will make inferences from the text to write the omitted dialogue between the two characters.

Because Taylor does not want readers to know in advance what Nanabush will do, he does not reveal what Lillian asks of Nanabush as she is dying. Once you have finished the novel, though, you should have all the information you need to figure out what her two wishes were.

In this activity, you will write a brief dialogue between Lillian and Nanabush that makes explicit the things she made him promise to do.

• Reread the Chapter 4 conversation between Lillian and Nanabush to review what she explicitly says and where the conversation is obscured because Lillian begins to whisper.
• Write a dialogue between Lillian and Nanabush in which she reveals her wishes and secures his promise to carry out these wishes.
• Your dialogue should be 1-2 pages in length and demonstrate your understanding of

○ Lillian’s wishes for Maggie and Virgil

○ the symbolism of the thunderstorm