The Martian Chronicles

The Martian Chronicles was published in 1950. Besides appreciating the collection as literary art and a piece of literary history, what might a modern reader gain from reading it? How relevant are the concerns the book expresses to today’s world?

Teaching Suggestion: Encourage students to generate a broad list of the book’s concerns instead of focusing too quickly on a single, obvious theme. You may also want to stress to them that their conclusions can be mixed—that is, they may decide that some of these concerns are still relevant and others are not. You can challenge them to extend their thinking by asking what their conclusions imply about the predictive value of science fiction and the potential for this genre to impact people’s thinking about desirable futures and how to create them.

Differentiation Suggestion: Students who benefit from strategies for abstract thinking might utilize these ideas to  generate a list of the text’s “concerns.” These students might benefit from graphic organizers that allow them to cluster similar plot events, characterizations, images, etc. and then connect these to messages about society. Graphic organizers like this can also assist students with attentional and organizational differences.