Rain Reign

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

What are some types of weather events that can negatively affect entire communities? What types of conflicts might arise? After such an event, what might help the community heal?

Teaching Suggestion: Rose and her community experience an intense rainstorm with catastrophic flooding during a hurricane. Identifying ways in which a weather disaster can impact a community will be helpful in establishing a foundation for students as they read about Rose’s experience. Beyond the initial danger and potential loss, subsequent school disruptions, fear, and uncertainty can be ongoing. Class discussion might include ways to help people heal after a trauma in the community. Depending on students’ background with this topic, discussion of current or recent weather events might be beneficial for making connections. If time permits, students might conduct research using these or similar sources.

• This site from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network includes insights about various natural disasters and ideas to help a community before, during, and after these tragedies.
• With “Children In Disasters: Kids and Families,” the CDC offers games, graphics, flyers, and more to engage young people in disaster preparedness and learning about healing.

Short Activity

The main character of the novel, Rose, has autism. Research a topic related to autism and prepare a 2-3-minute presentation to help educate our class.

Teaching Suggestion: This open-ended activity provides an opportunity for initial discussion on autism and the need for sensitivity regarding neurodiversity throughout the unit. This activity might be approached with an overview as a whole class, followed by small group investigation and sharing of assigned topics. The 3-minute video in the Organization for Autism Research site might be viewed together. The class might brainstorm questions which could be posted for reference as they research. It might be helpful to assign groups additional sub-topics from these class-created questions to supplement research and presentations.

• This resource from the Organization for Autism Research offers an introductory video and lesson ideas for teaching elementary and middle school students about autism. (Teacher-appropriate; not student-facing)
• “Autism Spectrum Disorder (for Kids)” by Nemours Health provides an overview about autism, with written and audio options.

Differentiation Suggestion: Diverse learners might benefit from a more specific outline or a list of questions to answer during their research. Providing a slide with sentence stems for each group to use in completing the task may be beneficial.

The Nemours Health resource offers an audio version of the text of the article.

The focus of the prompt might be adjusted to “What is neurodiversity? Research a topic related to neurodiversity and prepare a 2-3-minute presentation to help educate our class.”

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

How would you define kindness? What is its value? What are some ways you have been kind recently? How have others’ acts of kindness affected you?

Teaching Suggestion: Rose demonstrates kindness by finding Rain’s original family, at great personal cost. Throughout the story, kindness plays an important role, as evidenced by interactions between Rose and her uncle, moments between Rose and her classmates, and the ways in which Rose and Rain care for each other. These examples of compassion contrast with the indifference and cruelty Rose’s father and some peers show at times. Students might journal, then share in small groups. Compiling and displaying a class list of kind acts may lead to further opportunities for discussion and comparisons during the reading of the novel. Students might be encouraged to carry out an act of kindness within a timeframe and then journal about the experience.

• This resource from the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation offers numerous suggestions to spread compassion, many of which cost nothing.

Differentiation Suggestion: For students who would benefit from strategies for abstract thinking, list specific examples on the board or display while class discussion is ongoing. The Random Acts of Kindness site provides examples students might explore; students who would benefit from an opportunity in analysis might categorize some of the examples by a created heading, identifying what examples under each heading have in common.

Students who would benefit from an opportunity to utilize musical intelligence/skills might write a song or present music that builds the idea of kindness for them.

For an opportunity in fulfilling interpersonal and kinesthetic learning styles, offering the choice to act out a skit about kindness might be beneficial.