The House in the Cerulean Sea

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.

“A New Magical Child”

In this activity, students demonstrate their understanding of DICOMY and of Arthur’s and Linus’s perspectives by creating a file on a new magical child being added to the Marsyas Orphanage.

In this project, you will create a file for a new child entering Marsyas Orphanage. The file will consist of a DICOMY profile of the child, an evaluation of the child’s needs written from Linus’s perspective, and a plan for meeting those needs written from Arthur’s perspective.

Create a Profile

• Think of a kind of magical being that is not already represented in the orphanage. You can choose a being that already exists in folklore or make up an entirely new kind of magical being.
• Create a DICOMY profile. The profile should contain a picture of the child, a paragraph of biographical information, and a bulleted list explaining the child’s magical abilities and the dangers these might present to others.
• Make sure that the voice, tone, and content of this profile are consistent with details offered about DICOMY in the text.

Create an Evaluation

• Write a report, from Linus’s point of view, that details the child’s educational, social, and psychological needs, taking into account both the child’s biography and their unique magical abilities.
• Make sure the voice, tone, and content of this evaluation are consistent with details offered about Linus in the text.

Create a Plan for Caring for the Child

• Write a plan, from Arthur’s point of view, for meeting the educational, social, and psychological needs of this particular child, taking into account what “Linus” has said the child’s needs are.
• Make sure the voice, tone, and content of this plan are consistent with details offered about Arthur in the text.

Teaching Suggestion: It may be helpful to students to prepare for this activity by discussing—as a class or in small groups—the differences between the voices and perspectives of DICOMY, Linus, and Arthur. They might gather information from the text and use this to make some notes or fill out a graphic organizer before engaging in such a discussion, adding ideas to their notes during the discussion with their classmates so that they are confident that they can represent these three differing perspectives well in their work.

Differentiation Suggestion: This activity requires students to transfer their understanding of DICOMY, Arthur, and Linus to a novel context. Students who struggle with abstract thought may have difficulty making this imaginative leap; you might consider preparing a model for these students to work from so that they have a concrete goal to aim for. English learners, students with dyslexia, and those with attentional or executive function issues may benefit from using smaller portions of text; you might allow these students to work in small groups to gather and pool information from the various parts of the novel. Students who would benefit from an opportunity in cooperative written expression might be allowed to work in groups of three on the case file, working together to make sure that each of their contributions is distinct from the other two parts of the file and accurately reflects the perspective of the assigned person or agency.