Bookmarks: A Companion Text for Kindred

Bookmarks is a series of companion textbooks that provides teachers with creative exercises and activities to supplement the teaching of a novel. Bookmarks are integrated reading-writing skills texts that address each of the seven intelligences identified by Howard Gardner: there are tasks/activities for the linguistically, logically-mathematical, kinesthetically, spatially, musically, interpersonally, and intrapersonally intelligent students.

A Companion Text for Kindred is designed to be used along with the novel by Octavia Butler (published by Beacon Press), which tells the story of a young black woman who disappears from her home in 1970s California to save the life of her white slave-owner ancestor in the early 19th century.

Each of the six units in the companion texts begins with a preview of the reading and free-writing topics, followed by exercises that improve comprehension and vocabulary building. Students use response journals so as to think about their personal connection with the novel. The "Beyond the Novel" section in each textbook introduces factual background information from which students learn about history and other interesting material mentioned in the novels.