Deep Water

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

Survival stories often feature a protagonist or group of protagonists facing conflict while stranded in the wilderness or other dangerous, isolated locations. Use your imagination to speculate about being stranded in the ocean. What conflicts and challenges might you face? What sets ocean survival apart from other survival situations?

Teaching Suggestion: Most of this book takes place in the Gulf of Mexico. The main characters find themselves lost in open water when their boat drifts away from their dive location. Once students have a chance to address these questions, it may be beneficial for them to list details that help the people survive these real-life perils and make predictions about the novel. Information from these or similar resources can help students develop additional context on the topic.

• This Popular Science article suggests some practical tips for surviving being lost at sea.
• This Australian Broadcasting Corporation article explores an incident with clear connections to the novel: Four people surface from a dive to find the boat gone.