64 pages • 2 hours read
Daniel KeyesA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
“progris riport 1-Progress Report 10”
Reading Check
1. What makes Charlie a good candidate for the experiment?
2. What is the experiment meant to accomplish?
3. Who is Algernon?
4. Where does Charlie work?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What are the Rorschach and Thematic Apperception Tests, and how do they correlate to Charlie’s intelligence?
2. What is Charlie’s true relationship with Joe and Frank, and in what ways is this demonstrated in relation to The Dignity of All Humans?
3. How does the reader understand that Charlie is becoming more intelligent during the days after the surgery?
4. How do the memories that Charlie begins to experience about his family relate to the theme The Psychological Impact of the Past?
Paired Resource
“Progress Reports 11-13”
Reading Check
1. What do Alice and Charlie do together?
2. Why was Charlie fired from his job?
3. What does Alice accuse Charlie of doing when conversing?
4. Why does Charlie fly to Chicago?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How might Charlie’s memories of his mother affect Charlie’s ability to act on his feelings toward Alice?
2. How is Charlie conflicted about Gimpy, and how does this relate to the theme Acquiring Intelligence Versus Developing Emotions?
3. Which memories about Rose emerge as Charlie delves deeper into his past, and how do these memories help him understand his current condition?
4. How does the way Dr. Nemur, Dr. Strauss, and Burt treat Charlie provoke him to let Algernon out of its cage?
Paired Resource
“Charlie Gordon Conference Scene”
“Progress Reports 14-15”
Reading Check
1. Who is Fay Lillman?
2. What does Charlie do when he visits his father’s barbershop?
3. What must Charlie be allowed to do if he returns to the Wellberg Foundation?
4. What is happening to Algernon?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is the significance of Charlie hallucinating younger versions of himself?
2. How does Charlie’s experience with another young man with an intellectual disability affect his decision to return to the Wellberg Foundation?
3. How has Algernon’s behavior changed, and what does this suggest about Charlie’s future?
Paired Resource
“Ozymandias” by Percy Shelley
“Progress Reports 16-17”
Reading Check
1. Which two family members does Charlie reconnect with?
2. Where will Charlie go if he loses his intelligence?
3. What does Charlie regularly do at Algernon’s grave?
4. How is Charlie feeling regarding his activities with Fay?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. In what way was Charlie’s visit to Warren State Home a positive experience?
2. What is the significance of the “Algernon-Gordon Effect?”
3. Why does Charlie’s visit to Alice’s class upset her?
4. Which characters treat Charlie with dignity and respect at the end of the novel? Which ones do not?
Recommended Next Reads
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
“progris riport 1-Progress Report 10”
Reading Check
1. He has good motivation. (progris riports 1-6)
2. Increase Charlie’s intelligence (progris riports 1-6)
3. A lab mouse (progris riports 1-6)
4. A bakery (Progress Reports 7-8)
Short Answer
1. The Rorschach Test (also known as an inkblot test) and the Thematic Apperception Test are meant to assess Charlie’s ability to think critically and come up with original ideas about what he is perceiving. He is unable to do so, demonstrating his below-average IQ. (progris riports 1-6)
2. Prior to Charlie’s surgery, he believes that Joe and Frank are his friends at the bakery. However, as he becomes more intelligent, Charlie notices that he is not treated with respect by his two colleagues as they trick him into eating wax fruit and purposefully get him drunk, only to later abandon him. (Progress Reports 7-9)
3. The progress reports become more grammatically correct and legible as Charlie learns to spell. Furthermore, the entries begin to detail the development of emotional intelligence such as recognizing Gimpy’s kindness, Joe and Frank’s disrespect, and his sexual attraction to a woman. (Various Progress Reports)
4. Once the television is established in his room while he sleeps at night, he begins to recall his family and their primarily negative reactions to him such as ignorance, fear, and anger. As such, these memories of the past cause Charlie shame and other negative emotions about himself. (Progress Report 10)
“Progress Reports 11-13”
Reading Check
1. They go on a date. (Progress Report 11)
2. Workers complained about him. (Progress Report 11)
3. Talking down to people (Progress Report 12)
4. For a conference about the experiment (Progress Report 13)
Short Answer
1. Charlie remembers how his mother had beaten him because he had an erection. Due to such a strong, negative affiliation with sexual attraction, Charlie is psychologically affected by the memory and fears being attracted to Alice. (Progress Report 11)
2. When Charlie finds out that Gimpy steals from the bakery, he feels conflicted because Gimpy is also his friend. Charlie had hoped that an increase in intelligence would help him solve difficult personal dilemmas such as this and is upset because this is not the case. (Progress Report 11)
3. Charlie remembers that Rose was ashamed of his neurodivergence and wanted Charlie to be “like other kids.” As such, Charlie realizes that his own motivation to increase his intelligence was fostered through Rose’s own guilt and shame. (Progress Report 13).
4. Charlie feels that the scientists treat him as a specimen rather than with the human dignity he deserves. As such, he pretends to let Algernon out, causing pandemonium, and then flies home back to New York with the mouse. (Progress Report 13)
“Progress Reports 14-15”
Reading Check
1. Charlie’s neighbor and sexual partner (Progress Report 14)
2. He receives a haircut anonymously. (Progress Report 14)
3. Study intelligence procedures for neurodivergent people (Progress Report 15)
4. Decreased brain function (Progress Report 15)
Short Answer
1. Charlie sees younger versions of himself whenever he becomes sexually attracted or active with another individual, representing the innocence of his inner child and the shame he feels by exposing his past self to these mature experiences. (Progress Report 14)
2. Charlie identifies the young man’s situation and remembers his life before the procedure. Appalled that others treated the boy with disrespect, he decides that he would dedicate his intelligence toward increasing the mental aptitude of all intellectually neurodivergent people to help them be treated with dignity. (Progress Report 15)
3. Algernon’s actions are becoming more erratic, and his intelligence and memory are waning. Since Algernon and Charlie received the same surgery, it is implied that Charlie may experience the same degenerative symptoms. (Progress Report 15)
“Progress Reports 16-17”
Reading Check
1. Rose and Norma (Progress Report 16)
2. Warren State Home (Progress Report 16)
3. Place flowers on the grave (Progress Report 16)
4. Weary and burnt out (Progress Report 16)
Short Answer
1. Charlie sees employees of the State Home treat the patients in their care with respect and kindness, something Charlie did not experience growing up. (Progress Report 16)
2. Charlie hypothesizes that the speed and quantity of intelligence increasing is directly proportional to the rate in which it would decline. Dr. Nemur validates this discovery, confirming that this would happen to Charlie. (Progress Report 16)
3. Charlie momentarily forgets that he is not in Alice’s (Miss Kinnian’s) class anymore since the surgery. This moment of amnesia upsets Alice as she feels despair and guilt for Charlie’s worsening condition. (Progress Report 17)
4. Charlie is treated with disrespect through actions such as Fay locking her door so Charlie cannot visit and one of the new bakery employees insulting him. However, others have grown to treat Charlie with dignity, such as Frank and Joe supporting him, along with Alice and Dr. Strauss continuing to visit him. (Progress Report 17)