Objective: Students will explore the characters and language of The Bean Trees by using Kingsolver’s language to create a poem about a character in the novel.

Directions:

• Choose a character in the novel (Taylor, Lou Ann, Mattie)
  
  
• Find passages that relate to that character.
  
  
• Decide which words, phrases, and sentences would be most relevant to a character study. Condense Kingsolver’s language, but (aside from verb tenses, minor prepositions, transitions, and conjunctions) do not change it.
  
  
• Organize those words, phrases, and sentences into a poem. Make sure that the piece is organized in a meaningful way (in a way that reflects the character, themes, or progression of the novel).
  
  
• To the right of the poem, place the page numbers from which you found the text.