An Instructional Manual to Accompany Natalie Babbit’s “Tuck Everlasting”

Abstract

Introduction:  This manual is meant to facilitate philosophical discussion concerning the children’s fantasy novel Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (1975, Farrar, Straus & Girous, Inc.). The discussion plans and exercises are written for intermediate aged students but, with modification, can be used with older students. The novel is full of «big ideas» and not all of them are addressed by this manual. Nor will all the ideas in the manual come up in discussions. As always, the teacher knows best what the students need and what works best for their class. Some of the discussion plans and exercises were strongly influenced by the work of Matthew Lipman. Those include the exercises on Connections, Names, Believing, Resentment, Friends, Gifts, Yourself, and Real/Unreal. His ideas were too intriguing not to build on.