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

1. Along Parvana’s journey, she mostly meets children. The few adults she does meet seem more helpless than the children.

• Why does Ellis focus on children throughout the novel? (topic sentence)
• Find 2-3 examples where children have more strength than the adults in the novel.
• How does her depiction of children and adults show how The Effects of War on Children are different from the effects of war on adults?

2. Throughout the novel, the characters struggle with the difficulties of war.

• How does war affect the characters in the novel? (topic sentence)
• Select one character and discuss how the war in Afghanistan transformed this person’s life.
• How do these struggles speak to the larger theme of The Senseless Nature of War?

3.