Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Setting plays an important role in Bradbury’s short story “The Veldt.”

• How does setting represent the characters’ internal and external conflicts? (topic sentence)
• Describe 1 situation that reveals the children’s internal conflict and how that conflict is represented in the setting. Then do the same for 1 situation that reveals the children’s external conflict.
• In your conclusion, explain why Bradbury chose to have the settings mirror the different conflicts.

2. The story mentions many different technologies, some beneficial and others harmful.

• What social and psychological problems do the technologies in “The Veldt” cause? (topic sentence)
• Describe 2-3 instances in which technology causes social and/or psychological problems.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, take a position on which technology caused the most harm and explain why.