The School For Good and Evil

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What fairy tales, legends, or other magical stories do you know? What do they have in common?

Teaching Suggestion: Some fairy tales and legends mentioned in the book are Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Prince Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. If students need help thinking of these types of stories, it may be helpful to brainstorm as a class, discuss modern film adaptations of fairy tales, or read one or more related stories before answering the prompt. This will help students better understand allusions made in the book. The NPR and Teen Vogue reflections on Cinderella in the resources below might be useful in unpacking the qualities of fairy tales and their importance in our society. This prompt transitions directly into the research Activity included in this guide.

• This article from Reader’s Digest summarizes nine of the most famous fairy tale stories, some of which are mentioned in the novel.
• This NPR interview includes a transcript and optional audio of an actor and director reflecting on a modern version of Cinderella.
• This article from Gianluca Russo and Teen Vogue presents the importance of inclusion in fairy tale representations.

Short Activity

Let’s research fairy tales, legends, folk tales, or other magical stories. In small groups, create a list of at least five questions about these types of stories. Use the resources provided or other reliable resources as recommended by your teacher to answer the questions and find additional interesting information. Share your findings with your group members.

Teaching Suggestion: Listing some questions as a class might help get this activity started. To strengthen visual communication skills, students could create posters with key information to display in the classroom in addition to sharing their findings in small groups. Another way to approach this activity could be to assign students different tales to read and report on.

• World of Tales is a website with links to stories from around the world.
• This article from Science examines origins of fairy tales.
• This article from the Association for Library Service to Children explores different aspects of fairy tales, including how they appeal to and empower children. This resource might be best for teacher reference or excerpted for the class.

Differentiation Suggestion: For diverse learners, it might be beneficial to look at the World of Tales resource and choose one to two stories to read aloud together. Using a graphic organizer like a Venn diagram could help to compare and contrast the stories as a class.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

How would you define good? How would you define evil? Is it possible to be both good and evil at the same time?

Teaching Suggestion: One of the central themes of the book examines The Complex Nature of Good and Evil. Our society often presents these terms as absolutes, but the novel puts them more on a continuum, with people having both traits to different extents. This discussion lends itself to a philosophical line, with good on one end and evil on the other. The teacher could read a trait or statement, and then students could move to stand where they believe that falls on the continuum and discuss why before moving to the next trait or statement.

• This resource by the BBC explores definitions and questions that arise around good and evil, and it considers how those definitions relate to religious beliefs.