The Westing Game

About the Author

Ellen Raskin was born on March 13, 1928, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Although she lived most of her adult life in New York City, Raskin's hometown and home state were very important to her.

Raskin drew extensively on her childhood and her family as the subject matter of her novels, although the fantastic and unusual nature of the novels disguises this from the reader. Although it is clear that some of her early memories—frequent moves, anti-Semitism, Depression Era poverty—were not happy ones, she was close to her home state in later years, as a "Notable Wisconsin Author" and frequent visitor to the Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin, her alma mater.

Trained in fine art, Raskin left Wisconsin for New York City, hoping to find a career in illustrating and ended up becoming an author.( http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-westing-game/abouttheauthor.html)

Plot Summary

This is a classic mystery story. It has sixteen interesting and bizarre characters, who live in a mysterious apartment building. They each  compete to become heir to the Westing millions. The novel combines a tricky mystery with a tribute to American opportunity.  Would-be heirs play both chess and the stock market in their attempts to solve the puzzle and gain a fortune.

In addition to being a satisfying mystery, The Westing Game is Raskin's exploration of material success and the importance of money/

Let's start by Exploring the Site  The Westing Heirs

There are Readers/Writers Response Sheets for each chapter. Your teacher will give you a hard copy.

There are copies of some of the response sheets below

Chapters 1-6

 Chapter by Chapter Writers Response.doc

Chapter 7-12

 Readers writers response thru 12.doc 

Projects

Activity # 1: (ART) Make a board game that reenacts Turtle Wexler's journey throughtout the book. Be sure to include all of the pitfalls Turtle encountered. Decide what the winner of the game gets based on the theme of the story.

Activity #2: (ART) Draw "Most Wanted" posters of all of the suspects from TheWesting Game. Include a brief written description under each picture. Compare the various versions of the characters, then vote for the ones that you find most realistic. Try not to base the voting on artistic ability as much as the ability to pick up what the character was really like.

Activity #3: (WRITING) Turtle Wexler spent a night in the Westing Mansion on a dare from her friends. Share times from when you were younger that you were dared to do something that you didn't really want to do. Discuss what it is that encourages people to respond to dares even when they don't make a lot of sense.

Study Guide