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 below bulleted outlines. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. The mist is an unknown, unexplained disaster that introduces alien dangers that none of the characters are prepared to deal with.

• How do the various characters cope with and adapt to the unknown? (topic sentence)
• Identify three passages in which different characters cope and adapt to the disaster and explain why these responses are successful or not.
• In your concluding sentences, explain which character’s strategy is most likely to result in survival and why.

2. In addition to being a horror story, The Mist is also science fiction. Science fiction often uses seemingly improbable events to explore ideas about the present-day world.

• How does the author use the specific example of the Arrowhead Project to make a statement about the danger of scientific ambition? (topic sentence)
• Explain the nature of the Arrowhead Project.