Gregor the Overlander

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. How can authors use their real-life experiences to communicate important messages in fantasy novels? What storytelling techniques might they use in worldbuilding and plotting?

Teaching Suggestion: These questions will prepare students to discuss Suzanne Collins’s inspirations for Gregor the Overlander. The novel’s topics include the realities of war and conflict, inspired by Collins’s experience of growing up with her father, a veteran of the Vietnam War. Through her father, Collins gained an early understanding of war’s consequences and long-term impacts, and it affected the messages she wished to convey through depicting wars in her novels. In addition, Collins used her own experience reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to inspire the setting of Gregor the Overlander. She wanted to answer the question of how “falling down a rabbit hole” might be different if translated to an urban setting, likely one that would be more familiar to contemporary audiences.

• In the 2011 article “Suzanne Collins’s War Stories for Kids“ from The New York Times, Collins discusses in an interview how her family’s experience with war influenced the kinds of stories she wanted to tell about its realities. (Subscription may be needed for viewing. Content Warning: Article discusses war, death, and violence.)
• The end of the article examines how Collins’s father influenced the development of Gregor the Overlander and its depictions of war. This resource, or excerpts from it, could be useful in helping students develop an understanding of how Collins used fantasy as a vehicle for important themes on the reality of war. This will prepare students to make connections to the novel’s theme of Peace. 
• Suzanne Collins's biography on her website also details some of her inspirations for Gregor, including the story of her initial Alice in Wonderland inspiration.

Short Activity

In the novel, Gregor falls into a fantasy world known as the Underland, where he learns that a prophecy has destined him to be this foreign world’s hero. Brainstorm other stories you’ve encountered that feature a hero or “Chosen One”—you might think about movies or TV shows you’ve seen, books you’ve read, video games you’ve played, or even myths or folk tales you might have heard! Select one of the stories from your brainstorm and write down some details about the hero in your story and what happens to them before they reach their goal at the end of the story.

Now, choose a partner and compare your results (make sure your partner has selected something different than you). Use a Venn Diagram or another note-taking method to note the similarities and differences between your two heroes and their stories.

Teaching Suggestion: This activity will serve as a segue into introducing the hero or Chosen One archetype in literature, as well as the steps of the Hero’s Journey (popularized by mythology folklorist Joseph Campbell). The results of the students’ comparisons might be expanded into a discussion of how these common hero story characteristics inform the archetypal structure used across genres and cultures. This can help students apply their understanding of archetype to a literary context through which they will examine Gregor as a chosen hero, identifying how he subverts typical tropes in the novel.

• This blog entry from fantasy author Katy Rose Pool on the official blog for prominent fantasy and science fiction publisher Reactor explores the strengths and weaknesses of the Chosen One trope in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Excerpts or teacher summaries of this resource may be useful for reinforcing students’ understanding of the hero/Chosen One archetype within the contexts of the fantasy and science fiction genres.
• TED-Ed's video lesson on the Hero's Journey presents the steps of Campbell’s monomyth as an engaging, animated 4.5-minute video. Educator Matthew Winkler narrates the video with explanations of each of the steps, even using Collins’s other novel, The Hunger Games, as an example. At the end of the video, Winkler connects the Hero’s Journey to universal human consciousness and experiences. This resource can help familiarize students with the Hero’s Journey structure and help them develop an understanding of its significance and role on cultural, social, and literary levels.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English language learners or students who may find it challenging to make the connections between other hero stories during the brainstorming part of this activity, consider providing a list of stories that students might select from instead. This list might include titles from pop culture that most students would likely be familiar with. (Examples: series such as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Percy Jackson; superhero comics or movies like DC’s Superman or Marvel’s Thor; Disney movies such as Aladdin or Moana; video games such as The Legend of Zelda or Pokémon.)

To ensure that there will still be enough variety to complete the second part of the activity, you may also wish to consider dividing the students into groups to analyze a title collaboratively. You might designate different areas of the classroom or a specific workspace for a particular title and assign groups or allow students to choose themselves. After brainstorming, group members can partner in twos to analyze their stories or you may use it as an opportunity for each group to present their findings to the whole class. This could springboard into a class-wide analysis on the similarities and differences across all the heroes and their stories. 

Advanced students may be given more in-depth analysis tasks, such as charting the stages of their character’s journey and, during comparisons, speculating on the common structure that unites hero stories. Even if this is a student’s first explicit introduction to the Chosen One archetype or the Hero’s Journey, the student may still be prompted to consider or hypothesize on common archetypes and frameworks.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

Think about what it means to be a leader. What are some important qualities you think a leader should have? What experiences do you have with leadership, and what were your reactions to those experiences?

Teaching Suggestion: This prompt will help prepare students to make connections to Gregor’s choices as a hero in the novel and his ultimate decision to value peace and cooperation over brutality and aggression. It may be beneficial to extend the topic to include how leaders should respond to those who are weaker or otherwise different than them; with this question, students will also prepare to examine the philosophical differences between Gregor and characters like Henry, who believes that strength and power are all that matter. Students might also connect the ideas of Strength in Differences and Peace to their thoughts on leadership.