Thought Questions: "Monsters are Due on Maple Street"

Thought Questions: "Monsters..."

• Thought Questions require higher-order thinking skills. They're more complex than comprehension questions. 
• There's no clear right or wrong answer, so the challenge is to use clear, precise language in your answers. 
• The answers are not in the text; these types of questions require you to make inferences based on what you've read. You should, however, use the text to support your opinions.
• In addition to finishing your vocab worksheet, I'd like you to respond to these questions in JE #16/left and right.

In “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” fear and suspicion motivate the people to suspect their neighbors, causing paranoia and prejudice, ultimately spiraling them down to their own destruction.

• Please refer to your story (teleplay) in your literature book (pg.70). 
• Answer each question in complete sentences. The questions are in italics.
• Try to limit your answers to 50-75 words. 
• In addition to your response, quote one line from the story (teleplay) that supports your answer.

1. FEAR: a distressing emotion aroused by danger, evil, pain, or the unknown, whether the threat is real or imagined. What are the people of Maple Street afraid of, and why?

2. MOTIVE: something that causes a person to act in a certain way, do a certain thing, etc.; incentive; goal or object of a person’s actions. How does FEAR MOTIVATE the characters on Maple Street?

3. SUSPICION: the act of suspecting (to believe to be guilty, false, counterfeit, undesirable, defective, or bad, with little or no proof; to doubt or mistrust for no proven reason). What causes this SUSPICION in the play? How does it “snowball”?

4. PARANOIA: baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others. What does the people’s PARANOIA do to the atmosphere of the situation?

5. PREJUDICE: an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed before knowing the truth or the whole story, often without knowledge, thought, or reason (normally directed towards people who are different from yourself). How does this PREJUDICE negatively affect the people of Maple Street? What exactly WAS the aliens’ involvement in this story? Why did their subtle take-over plan work so well? What does this say about human nature?