1. ENG 10 Novel Study Pre-Reading Activities
Flowers for Algernon
ENG 10 Novel Study
Pre-Reading Activities

2. Discussion Questions
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to have an IQ of about 68?
How would people treat you?
How would you feel about yourself?
Would you want to become "smarter"?
If someone you respected came to you and told you they could make you smarter, would you take them up on their offer?
Average IQ is considered to be around 100.
This is the premise of the short story, "Flowers for Algernon." This story was written by Daniel Keyes, who later expanded the story into a novel.

3. Rorschach Test/Inkblot Test
The Rorschach (RAW SHOCK) Test was developed by a Swiss psychiatrist named Hermann Rorschach. This test was designed to determine personality traits by interpreting a subject's responses to inkblot images.
Look at the following inkblots and decide what it looks like to you. Write down your responses and then compare them with those of your classmates. Were there any similarities or patterns?

4. Rorschach Test/Inkblot Test

5. Rorschach Test/Inkblot Test

6. Background Method of psychological evaluation
Psychologists use to examine personality characteristics and emotional functioning of patients
Currently the second most commonly used test in forensic assessment
Developed by Hermann Rorschach
Swiss psychiatrist
Believe in psychoanalysis
early 1900s

7. Thematic Apperception Test
The Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, determines what a person's responses reveal about them; i.e., underlying motives, concerns, and the way they see the social world through the stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people.

8. Thematic Apperception Test
what has led up to the event shown
what is happening at the moment
what the characters are feeling and thinking
what the outcome of the story was

9. Thematic Apperception Test

10. Thematic Apperception Test

11. Thematic Apperception Test

12. Themes of Flowers for Algernon
a tension exists between the emotions and intellect
the past has the power to affect the present
society mistreats and misunderstands the mentally challenged
Think of a book or a movie that incorporates each these themes.