Project Hail Mary

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What qualities, traits, or instincts are most helpful in ensuring a successful outcome in a crisis? Consider emergencies, conflicts, natural disasters, and other situations in which one’s well-being or survival is threatened. Provide a rationale for each quality, trait, or instinct you list.

Teaching Suggestion: Protagonist Ryland Grace offers readers a valuable chance to analyze depth and complexity in character development through direct and indirect methods. Discussion in the pre-reading stage of traits and qualities necessary in survival situations will benefit students as they evaluate Grace’s decisions throughout the novel and will help them in analyzing his character arc. To determine what qualities, traits, and instincts are consistent with people who survive in crisis scenarios, students may pull ideas from books news coverage, or other media. After listing their ideas independently, students might form small groups to determine the 3-5 most crucial traits or qualities and provide justification for the choices.

It might be helpful to specify the difference between survival skills like the ones in the linked article and the kinds of personal qualities intended in this response.

• This article from a wilderness school explores five survival skills everyone should know.

2. What titles, authors, and images best represent the science fiction genre? What literary elements are common to sci-fi? What subgenres exist?

Teaching Suggestion: This prompt might be answered briefly with a peer or small group; noting a compilation of the more influential writers in the genre offers the chance for students to make connections and comparisons as they read Project Hail Mary. It will be especially beneficial to guide discussion toward subgenres within science fiction and the differences between hard and soft science fiction. Depending on the goals of your reading group, students also might address science fiction films inspired by or based on novels as an extended discussion topic.

• This brief article includes a description of the term hard science fiction and several examples of titles in the subgenre.
• This hard science fiction reading list from the University of British Columbia Library offers the additional opportunity to discuss and compare book cover images representing the subgenre.

Short Activity

You wake up in the middle of an unfamiliar landscape with no memory of how you got there or even who you are. As quickly as you can, create a plan to survive. Begin by evaluating your situation and taking inventory of your resources and the biggest threats to your survival. What are your short-term survival needs? What are your long-term survival needs?

Teaching Suggestion: It might be beneficial to have students first create a brief description of an environment and conflict (e.g., deserted tropical island with sea life but no fresh water; a plague outbreak in a city without electricity). Then readers can exchange environments to determine how to survive in a random scenario. (Increase the challenge by requiring independent work and disallowing Internet access.)  

After sharing and discussion, students might complete one or more reflection prompts in their notes, such as: What was most challenging in creating a survival plan?

Information from these or similar resources may help students think critically about their plan.

• This article from an outdoors company outlines eight basic survival skills students can learn at home.
• The Cleveland Clinic offers this overview of types, symptoms, and outcomes of amnesia.

Differentiation Suggestion: A graphic organizer will benefit English learners and students with processing differences; the GO might include a brief description of the environment, a list of resources/materials, and a survival plan outline, including categories like Basic Survival Needs, Short Term Survival Plan (1 Week), and Long Term Survival Plan (3+ Months). 

Personal Connection Prompt

Think of a situation you have experienced in which communication with others was a struggle (e.g., a new language course, a conversation with someone whose language was different from yours, a miscommunication with a friend or acquaintance, an argument in which the other person did not seem to hear your ideas or explanations). What emotions do you connect with communication difficulties like these? What conflicts or concerns can result from a lack of clear communication?

Teaching Suggestion: In the novel, communication is a key component in the protagonist’s ability to develop friendship with an extraterrestrial life form. Students might follow up an independent writing session by generating examples of plotline conflicts in stories and films that hinge on miscommunication or an inability to communicate crucial information. In a guided discussion on clear communication benefits such as cooperation and collaboration, it might be useful to introduce the theme of The Importance of Cultural Relativism in Collaboration and challenge readers to seek out examples as they proceed.