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.

In some ways, Christopher’s trip to London is like humans going to the moon.

• How is Christopher’s journey to London like space exploration? (topic sentence)
• What are some of the specific similarities between Christopher’s expedition to London and NASA’s first moon mission? What skills and character traits does Christopher share with astronauts?    
• In your concluding sentences, summarize the significance of Christopher’s journey, both to him personally and to a wider community.

2. Christopher’s ability to find connections between very different things enables him to understand fundamental truths about human behavior.

• For Christopher, what is the moral of the story of the Cottingley Fairies? (topic sentence)
• How does Christopher connect Arthur Conan Doyle with the Cottingley Fairies? How does he regard people who believed the fairies were real?
• In your concluding sentences, evaluate the extent to which Christopher’s reasoning about Doyle’s beliefs and the fairy hoax help advance his investigation into Wellington’s death.