Oryx and Crake

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 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. Jimmy and Crake disagree about the ethics of genetic engineering.

• What set of ethics are at work in the novel and with what result? (topic sentence)
• Based on the novel, decide which character’s viewpoint proves correct. Describe the plot events that support this conclusion.
• In your closing sentences, discuss how the novel’s events develop the theme of Ethics.

2. In the novel, science and nature are at war.

• Which side is winning and why? (topic sentence)
• Discuss the success of genetic splicing in Snowman’s dystopia. How do the results of the genetic engineering differ from the goals of the scientists who developed the technology?
• In your closing sentences, discuss how the novel’s events develop the theme of Science Versus Nature.

3. Jimmy and Crake spend a great deal of their boyhood experiencing exploitation through internet voyeurism.