The Turning

Use these activities to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity. 

ACTIVITY: “Mapping The Turning”

The big picture of The Turning is often left in the margins for the reader to connect, so charting the different storylines will deepen the significance of the overarching narrative. Do this activity as a class or individually.

• First, place the stories in chronological order, creating a rough timeline of the events of the book (for stories that take place across two different time periods, like “Boner McPharlin’s Moll” or “Damaged Goods,” you can either place it where the main action occurs or divide it into two entries on your timeline).
• For each story, note the main characters and what they experience in a brief entry.
• Then, note any details that come out in the story that informs another story; for example, how Bob Lang dies is revealed in “Damaged Goods,” but the likely reason for his death only becomes clear in “Commission.”
• Now your goal is to create a consistent timeline for the main characters: In the center of your board, draw a line representing Angelus, then mark key events that recur in more than one story (Boner McPharlin’s bonfire, the period of police corruption, etc). If you’d rather do this digitally, there are free timeline creators online that would be useful, such as this tool from Adobe Express.
• Using a separate color, do the same for the main characters you want to track (the Lang family is the most important, but an in-depth version of this activity could take the main characters from each story and map them to the timeline). Instead of focusing on each story, focus on what happens in the characters’ lives, creating an overall picture of their character arc.
• As a class, discuss the most significant events in each character’s life. How did those events affect others in their community, and how do they show the way these people’s lives are interconnected?

Teaching Suggestion: This activity is designed to help students hold the whole narrative in their minds at once, so feel free to adjust the granularity of the work for your students’ interest and comfort level.