- Pi found studying sloths to be comforting because of their slow, calm lifestyles. Sloths are kept safe by being so slow and blending into the background. Pi found his two majors to be related, as the sloths would often remind him of God. Pi excelled at school and won many awards, and he is currently working, though he doesn’t say where.
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The story begins in a small family zoo in Pondichery, India, where the boy christened Piscine is raised. Piscine translates from French to English as 'swimming pool,' but in an India where many more speak English than French, his playmates of course nickname him 'pee.' Determined to put an end to this, he adopts the name 'Pi,' demonstrating an uncanny ability to write down that mathematical constant that begins with 3.14 and never ends. If Pi is a limitless number, that is the perfect name for a boy who seems to accept no limitations.
The zoo goes broke, and Pi's father puts his family and a few valuable animals on a ship bound for Canada. In a bruising series of falls, a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and the lion tumble into the boat with the boy, and are swept away by high seas. His family is never seen again, and the last we see of the ship is its lights disappearing into the deep — a haunting shot that reminds me of the sinking train in Bill Forsyth's 'Housekeeping' (1987).
This is a hazardous situation for the boy (Suraj Sharma), because the film steadfastly refuses to sentimentalize the tiger (fancifully named 'Richard Parker'). A crucial early scene at the zoo shows that wild animals are indeed wild and indeed animals, and it serves as a caution for children in the audience, who must not make the mistake of thinking this is a Disney tiger.
The heart of the film focuses on the sea journey, during which the human demonstrates that he can think with great ingenuity and the tiger shows that it can learn. I won't spoil for you how those things happen. The possibilities are surprising.
This Anticipation Guide: Life of Pi Lesson Plan is suitable for 10th - 12th Grade. Create an anticipation guide with your class for Life of Pi. They will have likely heard of the novel and maybe even seen the movie, but provide them with this guide to get them thinking. Yann Martel's Life of Pi is a complex novel, combining as it does elements of fantasy, philosophical questions, and religious references. Rather than using a whole-class discussion approach, the class is divided into book club circles. Assign reading, homework, in-class work, fun activities, quizzes, tests and more. Use the entire lesson plan, or supplement it with your own curriculum ideas. Calendars cover one week, two week, four week and eight week units. Determine how long your Life of Pi unit will be, then use one of the calendars provided to plan out your entire lesson.
What astonishes me is how much I love the use of 3-D in 'Life of Pi.' I've never seen the medium better employed, not even in 'Avatar,' and although I continue to have doubts about it in general, Lee never uses it for surprises or sensations, but only to deepen the film's sense of places and events.
1Compare and Contrast: Pi and the Frenchman
Kind of Activity:
Life Of Pi Overviewms. Scrolls Ela Classes For Beginners
Classwide Discussion
Objective:
To identify how and why the identities of the two men are so confused
Life Of Pi Overviewms. Scrolls Ela Classes List
Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5
Structure:
The longest section of dialogue in the novel is the confusing discourse between Pi and another castaway, both of whom are apparently blind. Read this section aloud, and then discuss it as a class. Who did students think Pi was talking to, initially, and why? Discuss with students why they think Yann Martel chose to make both characters blind, and whether they think the scene 'really happened' or was just a hallucination. Identify the elements that...