When I Was the Greatest

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.

“The Greatest Scrapbook”

In this activity, students will reconstruct the novel as a series of scrapbook pages.

Throughout the novel, Jazz is seen making a scrapbook of her parents. Usually, it is too hard for Doris to look at, but the family ends up looking through it together at the end of the novel. Choose one chapter and represent the most important moment through a scrapbook collage.

• Decide which moment is the most important from your chapter. This is the scene you should create.
• Clip out the people, scenery, and details you need from old magazines or printed images.
• Paste the clippings together to form your representation of the chapter’s most important moment.

Once all classmates have completed their page, compile the pages in sequence to form a scrapbook that represents the novel. Then, work in small groups to analyze the scrapbook. Does it tell the complete story? Which parts of the story are highlighted? Which moments were missed or forgotten?

Teaching Suggestion: This activity helps students review the text while isolating and analyzing key details.