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Teaching Ender's Game
Card liked an idea of mine during his incredible "1000 Ideas an Hour" session
Orson Scott Card with my son and me at Necronomicon 2001
The man, the myth, the legend
Booktalk: Ender's Game

You are the best of the best.  You are unbeatable.  What you lack in stature you more than make up for in intellect.  You are also the youngest, which means that everyone else--all the older kids in your class--hates you.  But you have to be the best.  You see, the entire world depends on you for its survival.  It's not enough that you just "get by" or that you are adequate; you have to excel in everything, everything.  You have to go above and beyond what is expected because there is always going to be someone who wants to show that you are nothing, that he is better than you.  But he's not.  No one ever is.  If someone could beat you just once, maybe the pressure would finally be off and you could go home to your parents, to the brother you hate, and to the sister you love.  You are being pushed beyond your limits and it is almost more than you can bear.  After all, you're only six years old, you're all alone, and if you don't prove yourself worthy, the entire world will be destroyed.

That's the premise of Ender's Game, a fantastic science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card.  The characters are outstanding, the plot is captivating, and the suspense is overwhelming.   Once you start reading this book, you won't be able to put it down.  
Topics for consideration when reading Ender's Game

How is Ender like Peter?  
How is Ender like Valentine?  
How is Ender truly unique?

Describe Ender as a child (chapters 1 - 8).  
Describe Ender as a leader (chapters 9 - 14).  
Describe Ender as Speaker for the Dead (chapter 15).

To what extent does Ender control his own actions?  
To what extent is he controlled by others?  By whom and how?

Compare Ender's character as he is at the beginning of the book with his character at the end of the book.


Inter-disciplinary consideration--HISTORY
(1) Compare Peter to Alexander the Great.  
(2) Discuss other child-kings and warriors.  
(3) Discuss famous against-all-odds battles.  
(4) Discuss xenocide/genocide.  
(5) Discuss the use of propaganda in war.

Inter-disciplinary consideration--SCIENCE
(1) How do things work differently without gravity?  
(2) Discuss Newton's laws as they apply to the Battle Room.  
(3) Vivisect a bug.

Inter-disciplinary consideration--MATHEMATICS
(1) How many different combinations of 40 boys could Ender use in his battle room strategies?  
(2) What is the ratio of bigger ships to Earth fleet vessels in the final attack?  How would you write that number as a fraction?  
(3) Discuss the odds that Ender faces.  
(4) Discuss "fair games."
Links to other sites...

Orson Scott Card's official website:

Booknotes by Jesse James Carton...I wish I'd done it first.  Sighhhhhh...

The original "Ender's Game" short story:

A useful information site for the book and author:

Information articles about specific items in the book:

"Ender's Game WebQuest" is a very well-developed site with group teaching activities:

This interview with Card is titled "My Favorite Author, My Worst Interview":

Ender's Game has been discussed as a possible movie for several years.  Here is the script as it stands now (it only goes through Ender's transfer to Bonzo's army):

I found a change between copies of Ender's Game andwrote to Card to ask if he had been bowdlerized.  My letter to him and his response to me are here:
Quiz: Ender's Game

1. What is unusual about Ender's family?
2. What is Ender's real name?
3. Describe the relationship between Peter and Ender.
4. Describe the relationship between Valentine and Ender.
5. Who is Mazer Rackham?
6. Who is the principal of the Battle School?
7. Who is in charge of the battle rooms?
8. Ender breaks Bernard's arm on the flight to Battle School.  As a result, Bernard assembles a gang of boys who persecute Ender.  Explain what Ender does to humiliate Bernard and take away his power.
9. Describe the battle room.
10. During the battles, what is the goal the armies must achieve in order to win?
11. Where does the giant promise to take Ender if he wins the guessing game?
12. How does Ender defeat the giant?
13. Who teaches Ender how to shoot his weapon better?
14. What foolish command does Bonzo Madrid give to Ender during all battles?
15. Ender, Dink, and Petra are wise enough to realize that it is not the boys in the other armies that are the real enemies.  Who are the real enemies?
16. With whom does Ender first practice battle room tactics?
17. Name three new strategies that Ender comes up with as a battle room commander.
18. Who are Demosthenes and Locke?
19. Who or what does Ender see in the mirror at the "end of the world" in his computer game?
20. Why were Peter and Valentine rejected from the Battle School?
21. Why does Graff ask Valentine to write a letter to Ender?
22. What army does Ender command?
23. Who is the smallest soldier in Ender's army?
24. How many battles does Ender's army lose?
25. Where is the enemy's gate?
26. What does the word salaam mean?
27. What does Ender do in order to learn new strategies?
28. What does Ender ask Bean to think about?
29. Why does General Pace threaten Colonel Graff with court martial?
30. With whom does Ender fight in the shower?
31. Who is Ender's teacher?
32. What is an ansible?
33. Who originally built Eros?
34. What is the simulator?
35. What is the common name for the Molecular Detachment Device?
36. Which of Ender's commanders is the first to have a breakdown?
37. How does Ender pass his "final examination"?
38. Who becomes the Hegemon on earth?
39. What does Ender find behind the mirror on the bugger home world?
40. Who becomes Speaker for the Dead?
Please check out my other Ender's Game teaching pages:

Ender's Game (page 2): Contains answers to the forty-question quiz above as well as seventeen tried-and-true projects

Ender's Game Study Guide: A complete study guide for the entire novel; includes questions that address complete range of Sunshine State Standards

Reading Check Quizzes: 10-question multiple-choice quizzes to check student comprehension every three chapters or so; also, instructions on how to receive copies of two open-book tests I designed
Created by Ryk Stanton, 2002
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