Participate in an open-ended, evidence-based discussion synthesizing the whole novel's setting, plot, characters, point of view, and theme.
A seminar is different from a quiz. There is rarely one right answer -- the goal is to build understanding together by putting your evidence next to someone else's and seeing where they agree, disagree, or sharpen each other. This week has no new reading. Instead, you revisit the whole novel and prepare to discuss its biggest, most debatable questions.
The central question worth sitting with: is Buck's ending a triumph or a loss? He gains freedom, strength, and a place leading his own kind -- but he also loses Thornton, the one being who ever earned his full love, and he loses every trace of the tame, gentler dog he once was. A strong seminar answer does not just pick a side; it uses specific evidence from setting, plot, character, and theme -- everything studied these past seven weeks -- to defend it.
Mastery looks like: They can defend a position about the novel using specific evidence from at least three different weeks' worth of tools (for example, theme plus point of view plus a specific scene).
Common stumbles: Offering an opinion about the ending with no specific textual evidence, or restating plot instead of building an argument from it.
See it visually
Interactive, spoken-aloud tools that show this idea in motion.