Polar the Titanic Bear

 Polar the Titanic Bear

Written by Daisy Corning Stone Spedden

Illustrated by Laure McGaw

Published in 1994

Gravel Level: 3rd-5th grade

 

Synopsis: Margaretta "Daisy" Spedden had booked passage on the Titanic in April of 1912.  She was to travel with her husband, Frederic, and her son Douglas.  Douglas brought with him his most treasured belonging; that was Polar, his stuffed animal.  Years later, Daisy wrote Polar the Titanic Bear, a fictionalized version of her family's experiences on the Titanic.  She tells the story from the point of view of the bear.  It begins as Polar is being sewn together in a shop and then put on a shelf in F.A.O Schwartz, a famous toy store in New York City.  Polar is left on the shelves for weeks until a woman purchases him and gives him to her nephew as departing gift.  Polar, his master, and master's family set sail on the Caronia for Madeira, an island near Portugal.  This is their home for many months until the family returns to New York for the winter months and up to Bar Harbor, Maine for the summer.  For years Polar travel with Master and his family to many different interesting places around the world.  In the spring of 1912, they board the Titanic, the most luxurious ship of all time.  Together, Polar and Master explore the huge ship until one cold night the ship struck an iceberg and people had to be loaded onto the life boats.  Polar is lifted safely onto a life boat with Master and Master's mother and nurse.  The Carpathia comes and rescues the people from the life boats, but Polar is left behind.  Eventually, a sailor finds him and reunites him with his owner.  Polar is eternally grateful to be back in the arms of Douglas, his master and friend. 

Theme/Skill: The theme of the book is friendship and love, yet the book could be used to demonstrate to students the element of personification.  The book also lends itself effortlessly to the study of history and the Titanic.  The teacher should help students to see that complicated events or ideas, such as the sinking of the Titanic, can be easier to understand if they are fictionalized into a children's story. 

Pre-reading activity: Introduce the term 'personification' to students.  Ask them what the root word is.  They will notice that 'person' is at the root of the term.  Have them tell you what they think the word means until they form the correct definition.  Give them a worksheet that has ten sentences on it, several that use personification.  Give students time to read the sentences, but do not let them write anything yet.  Call on students individually to read the sentence and tell you if that sentence uses personification and why.  Tell them that a good way to remember personification is to think of animated Disney movies because they all use personification.  This activity will not take long.  The next topic to introduce should be the Titanic.  Show students images, video clips, and facts about the Titanic to help them understand and see the significance of this ship's place in history. 

Post-reading activity: Because the teacher has guided students' discussion throughout the reading of the story, students should be able to choose something from their own life that they have a similar connection to (like Polar and Douglas).  Students will be given a significant amount of time to write in their journals about a toy or inanimate object that they care for.  Within the next few days, students will conference with the teacher to refine their journal writing into a final copy.  Students will then choose a part from their writing that they want to share with the class and bring in the object/thing that they wrote about to share as well. 

Assessment: Students will be assessed on their ability to use personification in their own writing.  This may be a challenge to some students because this writing assignment requires students to write from perspective other than their own.  Students will be assessed on spelling, grammar, and punctuation as well their organization of plot.   

Reflection: Polar the Titanic Bear is told from the perspective of a stuffed animal.  As a child, this always fascinated me because I believed that when I was not looking my toys came to life.  I believed that they had thoughts and feelings of their own (I am sure that I was not alone in thinking these things).  This book is intriguing because it tells about the sinking of the Titanic from a perspective that has never been seen before.  As readers, we were not alive when the Titanic sank, but we have learned about it from other people's accounts and points of view.  We hear facts and hear stories from people who survived the crash and historians who have devoted their time to learning about Titanic.  How fascinating it is to read Spedden's account of the Titanic from the perspective of her son's treasured stuffed animal.