Above is a word cloud I have created that represents what I believe to be the most significant terms and themes from The Giver. The words that are larger I consider to be more important than the other terms, as I think they are the most representative of the message and overall ideas of the novel. Giver is the largest word, as it is the title, and The Giver and his role in society is what the entire text is based on. Memory is also quite large because it is memories that changes Jonas and causes him to bring immense change to his community. The memories that he receives from The Giver significantly develop who he is as a person and the choices that he makes going forward. I chose to put emphasis on the word colour because even though the detail that the characters cannot see colour, except for Jonas and The Giver, is not revealed until quite far into the novel, it is a quality that greatly sets these two characters apart from the rest. Rules is another word that is larger, as the whole society is based on strict rules that the citizens, for the most part, follow without much defiance. It is these rules that make the dystopian society in the novel so unique. All of the words featured in this word cloud stuck out to me in some shape or form, which is why I have included them. I think that every person that reads this book would create a vastly different word cloud of what words they feel are the most important to this book and their understanding of it.
Word clouds are a great way for students to represent their understanding of a text and what they have taken away from their experience with it. I will definitely be using word clouds with my students in practicum when we are studying this novel to, first of all, see if they are grasping the main themes from the novel, but also to see how each of them interpret it in a different way. I plan to do a gallery walk with the word clouds that my students create about The Giver so that they can see how their classmates interpreted the text and how it compares to their own interpretation.