Shameless Plug: _The Lord of the Flies_ Interactive Survival Game

 I love this book with a passion!  As far as teaching symbolism, this book really gets reluctant readers to "get it".  The book has great characters, plenty of action, and lots of good, wholesome violence to keep teenagers happy.  The only problem is that it starts so slowly.

Anyone who teaches reluctant readers knows that if you cannot hook them immediately, you've lost them.

So, while sitting in church one day when I should have been listening to the sermon, I had an idea for a game to get my students into the book.  I made it all by hand with maps, cards, the whole nine yards.  As the years went by, I get tired of replacing lost cards or materials that were marked on by various students and started to take it online.  It took a few more years to perfect it, but I think I finally have it down pat.  It has by far been the most popular page on my class web site by other teachers and it is the most mentioned lesson of mine when other teachers contact me.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/EET-_Lord-of-the-Flies_-Interactive-Survival-Game-6933163

I break my students into groups and each group represents 20 island-stranded kids.  The students decide how many rescue fires they will have, where they will be sheltered, who goes hunting, who goes fruit gathering, and if they want to go exploring.  Each round is a 'week' in the game.

First thing we do is have each group draw and Act of God card.  These cards sometimes bring good things to the group, have no effect on the group, or (more likely) bring bad karma to the group.  Then we draw cards to see what happens when they go hunting, fruit gathering, and exploring.  At this point we tally up the morale.  The morale goes up and down depending on many factors like having shelter for everybody, getting food, people dying (there are a lot of people dying), etc. 

If the morale goes below 10, then the group leader has to draw a Revolt card to see what happens.  Sometimes something good happens, but most likely something bad will.  Then it's off to see if you get rescued.  

For the teams that are left, they do it all over again for the next week with the remaining people they have left.

Sometime groups have everything perfect and it is more like a Gilligan's Island episode than a Lord of the Flies scenario.  Many groups get a good Lord of the Flies type experience, and some have so much bad luck that they make the book seem like a pleasant fairy tale.

Students are encouraged to think outside of the box and try things that are not expected. The teacher is the final say-so for what happens, so when students get creative, roll with it.

Whatever the outcome, the students experience situations that prep them for the action in the book.  Whenever I have used this game, I have found that students are more connected to the reading.

I always like it when teachers send me how their students came up with something new.  Sometimes I adjust the game to match it.  when my students started sabotaging the game to try and make their leader draw a Revolt card, I introduced a new element - Mutiny.  With some groups, that is very popular!

The game comes with the choice to either have it all online (in which case they would move objects on a screen), or to have printables for students to physically manipulate.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/EET-_Lord-of-the-Flies_-Interactive-Survival-Game-6933163

New Lord of the Flies Series

 There's a new Lord of the Flies series coming out.  Here is the trailer:

The first episode has already dropped and I believe there will be a total of four.  Unfortunately for me, it is a BBC show and not available (to my knowledge) in the US.  I'll have to wait for it, but if any of you are able to watch it, I would love to hear your feedback on it.  

There is also a book called William Golding: The Faber Letters which promises some great behind the scenes insight on Lord of the Flies and other Golding works, though I'm not quite ready to drop $40 on it just yet.  If you are, learn more about it here.

Finally, if you are a fan of teaching Lord of the Flies, check out the XET Survival game for it.  It's by far the best selling item in the store and something I am rather proud of creating.  

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/XET-_Lord-of-the-Flies_-Interactive-Survival-Game-6933163

Who's to Blame? - A Great Class Discussion Lesson

This is my second year doing this and I think I have honed it down to a good 45 minutes to hour-long discussion lesson. 

I got the idea/inspiration from a podcast titled Alarmist.  The format of the show is to pick an event in history, say the sinking of the Titanic, the assassination of JFK, the Donner Party, the Superbowl XXXVIII halftime controversy, and many others like it.  They discuss the event and then start listing (well, they say they are listing it on a board - I'm just an audio listener so I will take them at their word) all the people and traditions and beliefs and anything else that is a factor.  The patriarchy is a common one that makes its way on their list.  Once their board is full, they start eliminating or combining until they have three.  One gets a warning, one gets a slap on the wrist, and the other goes to Alarmist jail.

So I began thinking - this would be awesome to use in a classroom discussion.  So I tried it out last year with my AP kids on who is to blame for Myrtle's death in The Great Gatsby.  It worked ok, but not with the flair I wanted.  I feel that maybe squashed some of the discussion by wanting to list everything first and then talk about it.  This year I did things a little differently. For one, I didn't read Gatsby this year, so I chose The Lord of the Flies.  Our mission was to decide who was to blame for Piggy's death.

It started with this:

The students were given some time to discuss and think about all the contributing factors.  Once I felt they were ready for the challenge, we started taking suspects.  This time, I let each suspect be defended or argued before we moved to a new subject.  That was the key to success.  After a LONG discussion of students getting very heated (but in a good way), the board was packed.  At that point, we marked out some suspects (Isaac Newton was argued for discovering gravity, but we released him from being a person of interest), we combined some suspects into others (Piggy's Auntie and parents were combined and then moved under the umbrella of Piggy), until we finally narrowed it down to our three main contenders: Roger, Human Nature, and Piggy.  

I did it again with the next class and they had the warning going to Roger, the slap on the wrist going to Piggy, and Jack going to AP jail.

This format could be used with almost any book.  Who's to blame for Macbeth's violent run?  Heathcliff's atrocities?  the hanging of Justine Moritz? the suicide of John the Savage?  You get the point!  And the amount of prep work for you is low - assuming you did your job earlier to get your kids ready for deep thinking.  Since there is a huge argument component, this works for AP Lang just as well.

It was so much fun!  They really reached deep and even the silly suspects (the color red, for instance) were vehemently fought for by their arresting officers.  How this would work in a lower level class, I am not sure.  I can only vouch for this in an AP class setting.  Try it and let me know how it worked in your class! 

The above was conducted in 2024.

2025 I had one period and the guilty parties were in order of warning - slap - jail: Jack & Roger - The Beast - William Golding

2026 Class A: Jack - Roger - William Golding

2026 Class B: Piggy - The Glasses - Jack

Shameless plug - if you have the time, check out the Extreme English Teacher TPT store and specifically the Lord of the Flies Survival Game.

New! Lord of the Flies Teaching Guide and Activities

 Currently at Introduction Sale Price - will not be $3 for long!

TPT Store

This unit reflects the past 31 years of teaching - all the notes, lead-ins, activities, follow-ups, and tests I've created for Lord of the Flies.

What's included?

• 50 pages of notes and commentary - not book summary, but rather notes for in-class discussions, talking points, how to adjust for struggling readers, how to adjust for AP level readers, and analysis of the book and author - enough notes to go as deep or surface-level as you wish for your students

  
• 25 activities to choose from to do before, during, and after reading including Who's to Blame, 3-2-2, book allusions, TQEPs, online self-guiding chapter readings, and character Venn diagrams

  
• Quiz/Review Questions for most chapters

• Map, conch sound, and other images to share during class discussions
• 3 tests (two for regular level and one group test for AP level)

This unit will give you everything you need to teach this book to any level class.

Get it here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/XET-Lord-of-the-Flies-Teaching-Guide-15663613

Did you miss the sale? No worries. I use TPT to get things for school purposes, not to get rich. The unit price will be far lower than other unit activity packs you see on TPT.

You may also like the Lord of the Flies Survival Game!

Friday Film Festival: The Lord of the Flies - Modern Classics Summarized

Overly Sarcastic Productions breaks down literature classics in a rather sharp manner!  Watch their take on Lord of the Flies:

Check out my Lord of the Flies survival game you can play in class (if we ever safely get back to a classroom setting, that is). http://lordalford.com/lotf/lotfframeset.htm

Do you do anything special for Lord of the Flies when you teach it?  Let us know in the comments section!

Lord of the Flies Lesson Plan

 A friend of mine shared this with me this morning so I thought I would pass it along.  It is going to be my new lesson plan for Lord of the Flies this year!

The comic comes from The Jenkins Comics blog.

If you don't teach this book, consider it.  It is a great book to get struggling and reluctant readers into, though you will need to probably skip a chapter here or there to keep them from losing focus.  The symbolism is over the top, so many of them get that "A-ha!" moment when they finally understand what symbolism is all about.  Plus, the characters of Jack, Ralph, and Piggy resonant with the students. 

While you are at it, if you teach Lord of the Flies, try out my interactive survival game at the EET Store.

Finding Specific Textual Examples Using 3-2-2

A few weeks ago, I dreamed up a lesson.  My teacher neighbor said if I am lesson planning in my sleep, I have a problem, and she may be right.  I do this not enough to be often, but enough not to be rare.  Usually when I wake I realize that the lesson actually stinks, but this one might have some merit to it.  I'll find out today during second period!

The lesson is called 3-2-2.  I don't know why.  It was what it was called in my dream.

I'm trying this out with my AP Lit class with The Lord of the Flies, but it could be used with honors or modified for regular.

First, I give the students four blank index cards.  Then I give them a card with a blue prompt.  They will then go and find a specific text example or a quote that illustrates that point then write that on one of their blank cards - but only the quote/example and page number - no rationale for why it was picked.  If they have time, they should try and do two cards for the prompt.

I collect those and we do it again with the green prompts.

I collect those as well and then I hand them the red prompt cards.  These cards are more involved and require analysis.  I will allow them to do a blind trade (Mr.-Alford-I-will-trade-for-ANY-other-card-to-get-rid-of-this-one) and then I will allow them to do a trade between them until they either are stuck with the card they have or have managed to find themselves a card they want.  

Since I have chosen https://app.myshortanswer.com/ to be where they write these, I will have them join the activity and type their question into the answer box.

While they are doing this, I will be laying out all of their examples.  Once everyone has had enough time to record their question, they will only use examples that have already been found.  The examples will be first come, first serve and they will need to use two examples to explain their point.  It might turn out that they find the perfect examples.  It may be that they will need to use a bit a creativity to bend these examples to their will.  Either way, they will write their answer using their two examples to prove their point into My Short Answer and we will run the Battle Royale sequence to determine which writers did it best.

Time - It took me about an hour to write out all the cards and I plan on this taking the majority of our class period (which runs an hour and a half).  No grading time needed since I am using My Short Answer for students to evaluate instead of me.

This is practicing analytical thinking, creativity, and serves as a nice review of important details for the first ten chapters.  Hopefully it will work.  Tomorrow we do Who's to Blame, which I know always works.  Let me know if you have ideas on how to improve this activity or if you try it in your classroom!

Also of interest - The Lord of the Flies Survival Game.