Talk with students about how few adults there are in the novel, and how the children had to play adult roles even when there were adults present. Ask students for examples from the novel. Then introduce the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. See Convention on the Rights of the Child (https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention) for information and photo essays, as well as the following site (or find a similar one), which provides a version of the Convention in child-friendly language: UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Child Friendly Language (https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/un-convention-rights-child-child-friendly-language)
Have students work in small groups to study the articles of the convention and identify those that the children in Parvana’s Journey were denied. Have them create a presentation based on those articles (e.g., a dramatic reading of the articles with background music and images, a slideshow using presentation software, a reading or enactment of novel excerpts combined with a reading of the articles, a poster, a public service announcement, a web page design). You could arrange for each group to focus on one article, or the groups may wish to cover all of them.
Drama; English Language Arts; Health and Life Skills; ICT; Music; Social Studies
