Escape to Elsewhere: The Giver Escape Room

Hi everyone! I have recently created and implemented an escape room for the novel The Giver, which is one of my very favorite novels to teach in 7th grade. The students were able to “escape” in both classes, and were able to complete each task in about 5-7 minutes. There were a total of 7 tasks in all, including one final task in which I arranged for 2 representative students to “escape” the room to a colleague’s classroom, to see if they had the right room and the right answer.

How I Created the Escape Room:

I started by outlining the major plot points in the novel. I listed things that I knew the students had mastered as far as lessons I have taught in class and content in the novel. The list looked like this:

1. Sameness
2. Feelings
3. Dreams
4. Assignments/Ceremony of Twelve
5. Memories
6. Release
7. Decision to Escape
8. Escape to Elsewhere

Once I had this list, I tried to create clues or tasks that went along with each one. For Sameness, I found an article online that explained the concept of Sameness, why the community in the novel decided upon Sameness for their citizens, and what it entailed. I then wrote a question at the end of the sheet, and suggested the students should use the information in the article to help guide their answer. The question was: What item in this classroom would be outlawed in a community of Sameness?

I have a cactus plant in the classroom. The community does not have nature, weather, or plant life because of their controlled climate, so a plant could not grow in those conditions. Taped to the plate beneath the cactus was a key. This key opened a box for the Task 2: the feelings and dreams task.

I decided to put feelings and dreams together, as they are both rituals that the family units complete in their dwellings. I asked 3 questions about each ritual, and students wrote their answers on given lines. Some of the lines for the letters of the word in the answer had parentheses around them, meaning those were the letters that would be used for the answer to the question at the bottom of the paper.

Example: Lily shares her feelings about a visiting Seven: [ _ ] _ _ _ _

The answer for the example is ANGRY. The students then wrote the A at the bottom of the sheet, where they collected the letters from each answer that were in parentheses. All of the letters spelled out the word ‘HAPPILY’ and the students had to use a specific tool provided for them by me for precision of language (dictionary) to find the next clue. I taped the next key beside the definition of happily in the dictionary.

This key opened another box. Task 3 was the assignments task. The Ceremony of Twelve is when students become ‘adults’ in the community, and each citizen is assigned a job. The students in my class have previously created lists of the jobs, including a short description and page numbers, so they were able to use that completed assignment to help with Task 3. I included a chart with some page numbers and some descriptions of the jobs. I did not leave any entries completely blank, as I did not want to completely stump the students so there was little to no progress being made, and therefore, setting them up to fail and not escape. The students helped each other with page numbers and titles of jobs. They used this chart to help them figure out the 3 number lock on another box.

Instructions: Assignments are the Elders’ way of choosing careers for the citizens. Go through the list of possible assignments, using the given book as a guide, to complete the chart and find the right one to lead you to the next clue.

Once the students found the right page number that opened this 3 number box (052 for Fish Hatchery Attendant), they were faced with Task 4. This one took some extra planning on my part. Aside from assembling the boxes and locks ahead of time, I also created a Google Slideshow presentation and input photos and a puzzle board to one slide. I printed this and cut the puzzle pieces out, and then hid them around the room. The puzzle pieces were the first 8 memories that the Giver shares with Jonas. The students had to put them all in order, finding the pieces which I had hid around the classroom, and then assembling the puzzle correctly. I had prepared a technological piece in which students would then check their answer using a QR Code and a computer, but both classes had technical difficulties with the computer or the QR Code, so I decided to move on without this piece. The memories were of snow, the red sled, sunburn, rainbow, elephants, a broken leg, the Civil War and Christmas. Here is a smaller version of what I created:

I handed the students Task 5, which was about release. One of the turning points of the novel at the height of the climax of the plot is when Jonas finds out the true meaning of release. The instructions read: “One of the main conflicts in The Giver is the Sameness of the Community, and the lies told by those in power in order to keep this “Sameness” among the citizens. Jonas learns he can do more than the other citizens in the community with his powerful assignment, including being able to lie. One of the biggest lies told to the citizens is that of “release.” He asks to view the release of the twin boys as performed by his father, and finds out the real meaning of “release.” Answer the questions below to attempt to open one of the locks on the hasp that holds the big box locked.”

For this task, students answered 5 multiple choice questions about Jonas or release in the novel. Instead of the normal A-D options for the multiple choices, the students were given arrow symbols that would also show up on the directional lock that would open the hasp on the big box. If the students had answered any incorrectly, the lock would not open. Once they opened that lock, I handed them Task 6.

Task 6 was the decision Jonas and the Giver made for him to escape to Elsewhere. The task directions read: “Once Jonas hears that Gabriel is set to be released, he decides that he and Gabriel must escape the community immediately. Jonas bikes away from the Community, intermittently tracked by planes, trudging through snow and the elements, to escape. Jonas and Gabriel are on the brink of starvation and hypothermia when they reach the plateau on top of the hill.

How are they able to make it to the dwelling with colored lights and echoed music?____________________

Using the code below, figure out the code for the last lock on the hasp using your answer to the question!” I used a numerical code in which I attributed each letter to a number. The answer to the code was 9-2-5-4, or SLED. Students then opened the last lock on the hasp by entering the 4 digit number and they opened the box. Inside the box were directions that would help the students learn how to actually escape.

This piece was a leap of faith for me. I had sent out an email to my fellow teachers two days prior asking for volunteers to have students come to their classroom, possibly during a lesson, to ask the teacher if they had escaped. I was overwhelmed with the positive responses. I had a list of 12 teachers who volunteered. I had talked to the teacher to whom I wanted to give the “escaped!” honor, and she was on board (thank you, Ms. Knickerbocker!). To all of the other teachers, I gave instructions to tell the students they had not escaped and come back to my classroom. I also printed out posters from BreakoutEDU for teachers to give to the students as passes.

The directions for Task 7 were as follows: In order to successfully escape, you need to leave the classroom. With your teacher’s permission, two chosen representatives from the class may make a voyage to the decided upon location in order to hopefully escape to Elsewhere! You get three tries. If you fail three times, you do not successfully escape.Taking into account the end of the novel, where will you be going and why?

The students talked amongst themselves and decided on representatives. Then they decided upon where to go. The choices were vast and interesting, but ultimately, both classes decided to visit our Music Teacher, because Jonas hears music at the end of the novel.

Both classes were successful!

Student Reactions, Behaviors, and My Reflection:

In order to introduce the escape room to the class, I made a video with the beginning of the trailer from the movie version of The Giver and inserted a clip of myself explaining what was going to happen.

The students were confused, excited, and anxious, as they waited for more instructions from me to start. Some students naturally rise to a leadership position when they are in a group setting, whereas other students hang back and let others lead. In order to try to have all students feel included, necessary, and helpful, I told the students they would need to break into 2 or 3 person “teams” to complete the tasks. In hindsight, I may decide to let all of the teams complete each task, rather than one team completing one task, and make it more of a race to see which team can escape first. The way that we did it this time simply did not work for one class. I observed unkind behaviors between students, inappropriate comments, and even stopped the group halfway through for those reasons, as well as not listening to or following the directions being given. Because we had divided into smaller groups, some students sat and waited for their turn, without trying to help with the tasks that were challenging for the assigned team. I wanted to make this so that everyone felt included, and it ended up excluding some students. I felt bad for those who were engaged and excited to complete the escape room, as about 10 of the students in the class were working together, helping each other, and completing tasks together. The other 5 students made it difficult for the group to succeed.

There is another piece to the escape room that I have reflected upon and given some thought to improvements. The ending of the escape room was to leave the room to “escape” and come back either victorious or for another try. Both teams were successful in going to the Music room. The reaction of students in this class when the team successfully broke out on the first try was upsetting for me. The students who had not contributed by way of the tasks were those who were able to represent the class on the “escape.” They walked into the room and said, “We won.” This small group did not try to help the group in any way, and when they came in, lacked the enthusiasm I know the other students would have had, had they been given the opportunity to leave the room. As I reflect on how I can do better as an educator, I know that I need to truly include each student in decision-making choices for the escape room, in order to create the engagement I hope to achieve.

The second time I facilitated this escape room, it went much better. I am unsure if I explained the rules better the second time, having been disappointed with the first round, or if it was simply a different group of students. They understood each pair was responsible for opening the locks, and completing the task, but they all worked together to help with those tasks. They were also successful, and were genuinely excited when their representatives returned victorious!

Final Note:

I do not want to discourage anyone from doing escape rooms. I love creating them, although it does take weeks of preparation time to start from scratch, and it does take time to explain the rules thoroughly and in ways all of the students will understand. I am going to make it a personal goal of mine to make a functioning and successful escape room for that class. There were students who were so engaged and excited, and they deserve to have a positive and rewarding experience.

I hope this blog post helps to understand how I created each task. I will be uploading the full Escape to Elsewhere: GiverEscape Room to Teachers Pay Teachers in the future, but feel free to take pieces of what I have shared to make your own if you’d like. Also, please keep in mind, I have a kit I purchased from Breakout EDU that has many of the locks (padlock, directional lock, 3 and 4 digit number locks, and 5 digit ABC lock) as well as the boxes that I used for the locks and the tasks. This can be found for purchase at https://store.breakoutedu.com/. I purchased it before it included the platform piece, so it was not as expensive. However, you can find many items at a home improvement store or even the dollar store. I purchased extra padlocks there and they suit the purpose and certainly don’t break the bank!

Contact:

If you would like to reach out to me regarding anything you have seen here on my blog, creating your own escape room, or help creating one of your own for The Giver, please don’t hesitate to send me a message on Instagram (http://www.instagram.com/msgliddengetsyougoing) or email me (meganglidden@gmail.com). Good luck!