“All Summer in a Day” By Ray Bradbury

Use formal response when you answer. Write a sentence that includes 3 details that makes “All Summer in a Day” a science fiction story. Students will have a worksheet that accompanies this slide show on which they can do the writing activities and take notes. Key scientific details: the setting (Venus), the climate (constant rain), the plant life (a tropical jungle that is constantly beaten down by the rain and then grows up again) The plants are the color of ash (rather than green) because there is no sun. The plants bloom briefly when the sun comes out. The people have adapted to the climate by living primarily underground.

Talk and Write About It: Have you ever been jealous of one of your peers? How did these feelings make you act toward that person? Write one idea. Give students a minute to talk with people at their table before sharing as a class.

Talk and Write About It: Have you ever known somebody who just didn’t fit in? Have you ever been that person? Why do you think this happens? Same procedure.

Who is the protagonist of “All Summer in a Day”? Write About It: Who is the protagonist of “All Summer in a Day”? Here’s a hint: The protagonist is the main character. Students will record the protagonist on their worksheet. My hope is that they will all recognize Margot as the main character, but they might not be familiar with the term “protagonist.”

Getting to know Margot Authors use a variety of techniques to develop their main characters: Description (including metaphors!) Dialogue and thoughts Actions Reactions Before I reveal all the characterization techniques, I will ask the students for their ideas. I think that they will come up with some of these on their own.

With A Partner: Skim the story, looking for all the different ways that Bradbury characterizes Margot. Use green to write a verbatim description Use pink to write verbatim dialogue and thoughts Use yellow to write verbatim Margot’s actions Use a red to write verbatim how the other children react to Margot. I will give students 10-15 minutes to complete this activity. If colored pens aren’t available they can come up with some kind of code for themselves, such as underline, dotted line, squiggly line, and double underline.

For Example “ Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair.” Yellow = Margot’s actions Green = description This example will ensure that every student understands the task.

Write five adjectives to describe Margot that ARE NOT USED in the story! Stop. There will be a place on their worksheet to do this task. This will probably be the final task of day one.