Description

Mary-Liz Bright

Pacific Edge Publishing

130 pp, softcover, blackline masters

Level: Grades 4-7

Summary

During the time in Canada’s history when railroads were being built to link the east and west, men came from China to work in order to support their families back home. The novel, Lambs of Hells Gate, tells the story of a young Chinese girl who travelled to Canada to find her brother and bring him back to China because their father had died. It is a story of the physical hardship and racism that the Chinese endured in Canada but it is also a story of the unlikely friendship between a young Chinese girl and a railway worker who befriended and protected her. And it is the story of the building of the railway and the incredible event in which the S.S. Skuzzy was pulled through Hell’s Gate by Chinese workers hanging on to the cliffs of the Fraser Canyon and pulling on ropes attached to the ship.

Comment

The Lambs of Hells Gate teachers guide provides support materials to meet the prescribed learning outcomes of the Grade 5 Social Studies curriculum in BC, ideas for extending the learning to other areas of the curriculum, activity suggestions, reproducible blackline masters, assessment strategies and tools, and an annotated resource list.

Table of Contents

Section One
– Objectives of the Novel Study
– Prescribed Learning Outcomes (Social Studies and Language Arts)
– Using the Guide to Plan a Unit
– Teaching Strategies
– Before Reading the Novel

Section Two
– Prologue
– Chapters One to Twelve

Section Three
– Appendix A: Response Forms
– Appendix B: Evaluation Forms
– Appendix C: Politics and Law
– Appendix D: Related Resources