The Giver Think about it questions: While you read, think about the following questions. Be prepared to share your thoughts and ideas. Chapters 1-5 CHAPTER 1 1. Describe Jonas’ community. 2. Describe Jonas’ family. What do his parents do? 3. Who is Asher? 4. What do they discuss in their ritual of feeling sharing? 5. What is this “Ceremony of 12”? CHAPTER 2 1. What happens every December? 2. What happens when children become Ones? Nines? 3. Who is Gabriel and why is Jonas’ father worried about him? 4. Why is the Ceremony of 12 so important? 5. What things do Jonas’ parents share with him about their memories of their assignments and of their friends’ assignments? CHAPTER 3 1. What did Jonas notice about the apple? 2. How do all evenings end in the community? 3. What are birthmothers? CHAPTER 4 1. What happens to Eights? 2. Where does Jonas spend his volunteer hours? What does he do? What do you learn? 3. What happens at release? CHAPTER 5 1. What was Jonas’ dream? 2. What are stirrings? 3. What does Jonas have to do now that he has had stirrings? 4. Why do you think he has to do that?

Class discussion for Chapters 1-5 1. What are some of the rules of the society that Jonas lives in? How do the rules make people feel? How does Jonas feel about the rules? 2. What happens if you don’t follow the rules? Who gets punished and how? Why were rules “Very hard to change” (page 14)? 3. What do you think it means to be “released” (page 2)? When does it happen? How do people feel about it? 4. How, and to what extent, are the rules of Jonas’s society like those of your society? What differences are the most striking? 5. What are your initial impressions of Jonas? What are some of his character traits? What words does the author use to help the reader get to know him? 6. Why was it “considered rude to call attention to things that were unsettling or different about individuals” (page 20)? 7. What were “Stirrings”? Why was it necessary for Jonas to take a pill as soon as he experienced them? 8. To what extent are people all the same in this society? To what extent are they equal?

9. Is a society in which everyone is treated the same fair or just? What is the relationship between equality and justice? 10. Why do you think it’s important to be precise about language in Jonas’s society? How important is it in our society? While you read, think about the following questions. Be prepared to share your thoughts and ideas. Chapters 6-9 CHAPTER 6 1. What happened to Sevens? 2. What wasn’t Gabriel at the Naming? 3. What was the Ceremony of Loss? 4. What else do you learn about release? CHAPTER 7 1. What is Jonas’ number? How are they assigned numbers? 2. What is Asher’s assignment? 3. Page 56, “Thank you for your childhood.” Explain. CHAPTER 8 1. What is the difference between “assigned” and “selected”? 2. What is Jonas selected to do? 3. What attributes does Jonas have that will help him in his assignment? 4. What is this “capacity to see beyond”? CHAPTER 9 1. In this chapter, Jonas receives his rules. What does he think of each rule?

Class discussion for Chapters 6-9 1. How do rituals and milestones give a sense of belonging to people in Jonas’s society? How about our own society? 2. Why does everyone have the same birthday? Why does everyone have a number? How does this make people feel? 3. What happens if a Twelve doesn’t like his or her assignment? 4. Do you think all the Assignments are equal and respected? Why or why not? 5. Are the Assignments fair? Why or why not 6. The Chief Elder says, “Today we honor your differences. They have determined your futures.” (page 52) Does the society value difference or sameness? What clues help you to decide this? 7. How does the author use foreshadowing to create a sense of foreboding and suspense? 8. As more is revealed about the society, how do your feelings about the society change? Why? 9. Explain why Jonas is chosen as Receiver of Memory. What qualities does the Chief Elder describe as being essential to the position>? Does Jonas possess these qualities? How do we know? 10. Why is the Receiver of Memory the most honored position? Who are the “Receivers of Memory” in our society? 11. How do you think you would feel if you received Jonas’s Assignment?

While you read, think about the following questions. Be prepared to share your thoughts and ideas. Chapters 10-15 CHAPTER 10 1. How is Jonas treated by the secretary? 2. What is different at the Receiver’s home? 3. What is the Giver’s job? What must he give Jonas? 4. Page 78, what does this mean: “I am so weighted with them.”? CHAPTER 11 1. What is Jonas’ first memory? 2. What is Jonas’ reaction to the first memory? What about the Giver? 3. What happened to snow? 4. What is Jonas’ second memory? 5. What is Jonas’ third memory? CHAPTER 12 1. What is Jonas beginning to see? 2. How does the Giver help him? 3. What happens to color in this community (vs. in memory)? 4. What is Jonas’ opinion of sameness? CHAPTER 13 1. What causes frustration for Jonas? 2. What is Jonas’ first startling and disturbing memory? What is his reaction? 3. Is the Giver married? Explain about his marriage relationship. 4. Why is a Receiver necessary in the community? 5. What does Jonas wonder about when he’s not with the Giver? 6. Why does the Giver sometimes send him away? CHAPTER 14 1. What is the first painful memory and what is its effect on Jonas? 2. Why can’t everyone have memories, to share? 3. What’s wrong with Gabriel? 4. What happens when twins are born? 5. How does Jonas comfort Gabriel? What does he think of this? CHAPTER 15 1. What is this memory and what is its result on Jonas?

Class discussion for Chapters 10-15 1. What happens when The Giver transmits a memory? Why do you think this is? 2. Why have memories been eliminated for everyone else? 3. The Giver says, “Without the memories it’s all meaningless.” (page 112) What do you think he means? What is he suggesting about his own society? 4. How does the first memory The Giver transmits make Jonas feel? Why do you think Jonas must experience the memories rather than just hear about them? 5. What is missing in Jonas’s society? Why do you think these things were eliminated? 6. What are the pleasurable things Jonas experiences? How do they make him feel? 7. Why does The Giver transmit pain? How does it make Jonas feel? 8. Poet Alfred Lord Tennyson said, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” What do you think he meant? Would The Giver agree? Do you? 9. Why has color been eliminated in this society? How has the absence of color helped this society? How has it harmed it? 10. How does the author make the memories that The Giver transmits vivid and realistic? Find examples

of descriptive words and images. 11. How do you think Jonas feels now about the society he lives in? How have your feelings about it changed? 12. Where has the author used the color red in the story? How is “color” symbolic in the story? 13. Why does The Giver ask for forgiveness when he transmits the memory of war and thirst? While you read, think about the following questions. Be prepared to share your thoughts and ideas. Chapters 16-20 CHAPTER 16 1. What are some good memories? 2. What is the Giver’s favorite memory? Explain. 3. How does Jonas feel about this memory? 4. What happens when Jonas discusses this feeling with his parents? 5. What is Jonas’ relationship to Gabriel now? 6. How does Jonas break the rules at the end of this chapter? What implications will this have? CHAPTER 17 1. How is Jonas changing? 2. What is his reaction to his friends’ game of “war”? 3. What are his feelings? 4. What is Lily’s talent? CHAPTER 18 1. Explain what happened to Rosemary and its impact on the community. 2. Page 145, what do they contemplate? CHAPTER 19 1. What do you find out about release? CHAPTER 20 1. What are Jonas’ feelings after obtaining this new knowledge? 2. What are their insights about memory? 3. Which of the senses did the Giver have? What was special to him that he hadn’t yet shared? 4. What is their plan for creating change in the community?

Class discussion for Chapters 15-20 1. What are the benefits to living in the society that Jonas lives in? What are the costs? 2. What memory does The Giver transmit to Jonas after the horror of war? Why? 3. What does Jonas realize about the way his society sets old people apart from young people? 4. What is the only memory The Giver has kept for himself? Why do you think he has saved this memory? 5. Do you consider Jonas’s world “advanced”? Why or why not? 6. How does Jonas’s accumulation of memories (or knowledge) make him feel? How do they change his understanding of the society he lives in? 7. Why does Jonas ask his parents if they love him? What do they say? How does he feel? 8. Philosopher and statesmen Francis Bacon said, “Knowledge is pain.” Do you agree? Would Jonas? Why or why not? 9. What does Jonas learn about being Released? How does this affect how he thinks? 10. Why and how does the society shield its citizens from the true meaning of “Release”? What might happen if everyone knew what Release really meant? 11. What happened to Rosemary? What were the implications for the society? 12. What do Jonas and The Giver decide to do? Do you think they are right? Why or why not? 13. Why does The Giver leave?

While you read, think about the following questions. Be prepared to share your thoughts and ideas. Chapters 21-23 CHAPTER 21 1. Why did the plan change? 2. How did he know they were looking for him? How did he hide? 3. What happened to his memories? CHAPTER 22 1. How was the landscape changing? 2. What are new dangers? CHAPTER 23 1. What was the weather like? 2. What happened to the bicycle? 3. How does this book end? Did you like it, why or why not?

Class discussion for Chapters 21-23 1. What happens when Jonas leaves? Where does he go? What does he find? 2. How has Jonas’s life changed? How does she react to his new experiences? 3. Do you think that Jonas regrets leaving? Why or why not? 4. What do you think happens in the end of the story? 5. How do you think Jonas’s “escape” and its aftermath will affect the society he left behind? What do you think will happen to The Giver? 6. Where and when do you think this story takes place – past, present, or future? 7. What did Jonas give up for freedom? What did he gain? 8. What did freedom mean for Jonas?