Scholastic Canada: I Am Canada

Discussion Guide: I Am Canada: Deadly Voyage

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QUESTIONS:

  1. What is your favourite photograph or document in the images section? What is it about this image that makes you want to keep looking at it, or find out more about it?
  2. If you had to be on the back of an overturned lifeboat in a cold, turbulent ocean, at night, which of the characters from the book would you choose as companions to help you make it through to dawn? Why?
  3. Many novels have been created about the sinking of the Titanic. Three recent ones for young readers are Sarah Ellis's Dear Canada: That Fatal Night, Julie Lawson's Ghosts of the Titanic and Gordon Korman's Titanic trilogy. What is it about the approach that Hugh Brewster takes in Deadly Voyage that sets his story apart?
  4. The unwritten but customary rule of "women and children first" meant that men were not allowed onto the lifeboats even though there was room in many of the boats for other passengers. Would such a rule still be proposed if the Titanic were sinking today? Discuss the ethics of such a rule, and what has changed in the hundred years since the Titanic sank.
  5. Think of how Jamie's friend Johnnie is accused of dressing as a girl to save himself, and thereby shamed. Think of the number of second- and third-class passengers who did not make it up to the boat deck to get into a lifeboat. Given the limited number of lifeboats and the huge number of people, how would YOU decide who goes and who stays?
  6. "The captain goes down with the ship" is a longstanding maritime tradition — the captain is supposed to stay with his ship, or be the last one off if rescue is possible. Why do you think this tradition originated? Is it fair?

ACTIVITIES

  1. Based on Jamie's description of how the Titanic sank, and using the Lewis Skidmore illustrations on page 188, draw your own set of panels that depict the sinking of the ship.
  2. If someone were to list the items in your possession right this moment, like the personal effects on pages 187, what would be found in your pockets, backpack and/or wallet? What would these items say about the kind of person you are, if someone is trying to "know you" only by looking at your possessions?

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