Item description

Promote active engagement with fiction, support the development of close reading analysis skills for high school, and evaluate general reading comprehension with this bundle of resources for teaching the science fiction short story “The Fog Horn” by Ray Bradbury. Included are the following: a plot-based quiz, a rigorous close reading worksheet, a craft analysis activity, and answer keys. Materials are delivered in printable Word Document and PDF formats. 

By completing the quiz, students will demonstrate knowledge of the following:

• Point of view
• Setting
• McDunn’s thoughts on the ocean
• A strange incident involving a million fish
• The sound of the fog horn
• The characters’ nickname for the ocean
• The narrator’s thoughts on the sea creature
• McDunn’s theory about the sea creature
• An experiment involving the fog horn
• The sea creature’s reaction to the experiment
• The narrator’s life one year later
• The lesson McDunn thinks the sea creature learned
• The narrator’s feelings toward the sea creature

By completing the close reading activity, students will:

• Articulate what is stated in the text explicitly and implicitly
• Identify several examples of personification and/or anthropomorphism in the narrative
• Identify several textual details that contribute to a sense of isolation
• Discern the intended meaning of figurative language
• Discern the function of a given excerpt
• Apply knowledge of sonic literary devices including consonance and assonance
• Analyze the author’s craft
• Identify stylistic changes in a given excerpt
• Articulate the intended effect of stylistic changes in a given excerpt
• Analyze relationships between complex characters
• Articulate how a given detail is an example of foreshadowing
• Make logical inferences about character motivations
• Cite textual evidence in support of inferences and claims
• Write with clarity and precision

By completing the craft analysis activity, students will:

• Develop a greater understanding of how Ray Bradbury used descriptive language, characterization, setting, and various literary devices to establish an eerie mood that is consistent with the supernatural fiction and science fiction genres.