The Lovely Bones

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.

“Photo Journal”

In this activity, students create a photo journal to analyze the important things in life.

In The Lovely Bones, Susie’s hobby of taking pictures serves as a reminder of what is most important to her family and friends. Other photos in the novel also play an important role for the characters, such as the photos Fenerman uses to keep track of his cases and the photos Jack and Abigail use to remember Susie. Eventually, Fenerman and Abigail release some of the photos because they are connected to items or belief systems they can no longer hold on to.

Create a photo journal as a reminder for you and those closest to you of what is most important. Draw comparisons between the photos throughout the novel to your own photos as reminders of what to let go of and what to hang on to.

• Begin by dividing your photo journal into two sections.
• Create a label for the first section of “What to hold on to.”
• Create a label for the second section of “What to let go of.”
• What is essential to you and those closest to you?
• What activities remind you of what is important?
• What are some objects, burdens, or ideas you can let go of?
• Create “photos” of these items or ideas using online images and framing graphics in a word processing or drawing software program. Collect your “photos” into an “album” to share and display.
• Add a caption to each item, comparing its importance to an item of similar value to some character in the novel.

Teaching Suggestion: It may be helpful to guide student thinking using examples from the novel: Shortly after Susie’s death Abigail sits with Lynn and Jack and leaves the dishes unwashed while Lynn gives her a makeover; the dishes exemplify something unimportant and not worth holding onto. On the other hand, Jack fell in love with Abigail because of Susie’s picture of her. That would be an example of something important he does not want to let go. If access to technology is limited, consider allowing students to create a collage, drawings, or list of items rather than a computer-generated photo journal. Students might share and discuss their photo journals as time allows.