Are you looking for a Halloween spooky story or a scary short stories dystopia unit that combines short story reading comprehension and argumentative writing? “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury is the perfect short story with questions and activities for middle and high school ELA students. This comprehensive unit contains scaffolded and differentiated close reading activities that are designed to help students deeply analyze the characters and events in this short story, as well as the big question of “Is too much technology a bad thing?”.
These reading comprehension activities will help students not only tackle complex texts and skills, but also create a logical argumentative writing response that is based upon what they have learned from reading the short story. In addition, everything that teachers need to implement this unit, from teacher models, teacher tips, and a detailed presentation, is included in this download.
✅ Skills Focused On During Unit:
• Main Idea/Objective Summary
• Inferences
• Characterization
• Making Predictions
• Context Clues
• Story Elements
• Foreshadowing
• Theme
• Argumentative Writing
✍ What’s Included:
• Anticipation and Reaction Guide
• Probable Passage
• Differentiated Vocabulary and Context Clues Activity
• Close Reading Activity with Differentiated Tasks
- First Read: Read to get the Gist (OMG!?! What Happened?)
- Second Read: Digging Deeper with Guiding Questions
- Third Read: Identify Technology in House and Its’ Role in Hadley Family
• Assessment with Multiple Choice Questions + Constructed Response
• Argumentative Writing Task
- Task #1-Pre-writing
- Task #2-Rough Draft
- Task #3-Self and Peer Assessment
- Task #4-Final Draft
- Argumentative Writing Reference Sheet
- Argumentative Writing Task Rubric
• Choice Board Activity (EARLY FINISHERS ACTIVITY)
• Teacher Models and Answer Keys
• Lesson Presentation
• Lesson Outline Notes
❤️ Why You’ll Love This Resource:
✅ Saves You Time with Quick and Easy Prep
✅ Scaffolded Lessons to Meet the Needs of All Learners
✅ Clear Student Directions and Criteria
✅ Strategies and Activities for Student Collaboration
What Other Teachers Are Saying About This Resource:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: Joshua K. says, “Very thorough and complete. It is apparent that a lot of thought went into this product. I really like how the argumentative writing component is broken into steps and parts. It really helped my students write better argumentative papers.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: Learn and Grow Dailey says, “We use this with our Advanced 6th grade class and sometimes our average/above average reading group. The activities are thought provoking and thorough, and we love that it allows for a range of abilities. Thanks for a great resource!”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: Jennifer S. says, “Such a thorough, rigorous, and relevant product! You can’t teach “The Veldt” without this one!”
