65 pages • 2 hours read
Messenger
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During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
CHAPTERS 1-5
Reading Check
1. What object has Ramon’s family recently acquired from Trade Mart?
2. Which title does Matty hope to receive as his “true name”?
3. What peculiar phenomenon caused Gatherer’s death?
4. Who submitted the petition that Leader will discuss at the next meeting?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Village differ from Matty’s community of origin?
2. Why does Matty not fear Forest the way others in Village do?
3. Why is Matty surprised to learn who submitted the petition?
4. What secret is Matty hiding out in Forest?
Paired Resource
“After a Terrorist Attack, We Grow Fearful. Here’s What That Does to Our Brains.”
- This resource explores the psychological impact of terrorist attacks and how that fear eventually prompts dehumanizing and “othering” those who are different in some way. The article discusses the role that empathy plays in reducing fear and promoting positive reactions instead.
- Messenger was written in 2004, and the situation regarding the petition to close Village’s borders likely comments on American attitudes towards immigrants and visitors from other countries and border security in the years immediately following 9/11. This resource will allow students to connect with this cultural/historical context and consider how fear prompts attitudes of selfishness and prejudice.
- This article connects to the theme of Selfishness Versus the Collective Good.
- What important values like empathy does Village exemplify? How do you think fear might motivate the petitioners who want to close Village’s borders? Why does Seer say that selfishness has crept into Village?
CHAPTERS 6-10
Reading Check
1. What three-word question does Trademaster ask every person making a trade at Trade Mart?
2. What does Matty learn that Mentor is trading away at Trade Mart?
3. What special gift does Seer say that Leader has?
4. Whom does Matty agree to retrieve and bring back to Village?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What changes does Matty notice in Mentor during the welcoming of the newcomers?
2. According to Seer, how has Trade Mart changed since its inception?
3. How are the people at Trade Mart different after making trades?
Paired Resource
Macduff’s Monologue—Macbeth Act 4, Scene 3 (Shakespeare at Play)
- In this performance from Shakespeare at Play, a website providing free videos of staged scenes from Shakespeare’s plays, the character Macduff reacts to the news that his castle has been attacked and his wife and children killed. The speech’s full text is included below the video. The video is 13 minutes long; starting at the 10-minute mark will provide enough context to understand the scene leading up to Macduff’s lines that are quoted in the novel.
- This resource will offer students context on the allusion Lowry makes to Macbeth in Chapter 9, allowing them to analyze its relevance to the text and Mentor’s decline.
- This video and text connect to the theme Selfishness Versus the Collective Good.
- How do Macduff’s sentiments reflect the grief that Matty and Jean feel for the changes that Mentor is undergoing? How do Macduff’s feelings about losing his home, his wife, and children all at once reflect the disorientation Matty feels at coping with so many sudden changes to his home? How does the tone of Macduff’s monologue parallel the darkening atmosphere of Village?
“Migration, Separation, and Family Survival”
- This article by Dr. Leah Schmalzbauer for the National Council on Family Relations explores the experiences of migrant women struggling with socioeconomic conditions in their home countries who must leave their children temporarily to build a better life for their families.
- In Chapter 9, Matty talks to one of the newcomers, a woman who left her children behind to journey to Village. She intended to go back for them once she was assured of Village’s safety but is now afraid that she cannot make the journey with the threat of Village’s borders closing. This changes Matty’s perspective on the importance of keeping the borders open for outsiders. This resource will provide students with insight into how this situation in the novel mirrors the real-life adversities some migrant families undergo.
- The content of this resource connects to the themes of Identity, Diversity, and Difference and Selfishness Versus the Collective Good.
- How does the new woman Matty talks to in Chapter 9 change his perspective on the importance of keeping the borders open for outsiders? How does the woman’s action point to the kind of selflessness that is valued in Village?
CHAPTERS 11-15
Reading Check
1. According to Leader, what is happening to Forest?
2. What physical disability does Kira possess that makes her an outcast in her society?
3. What is Kira’s special gift?
4. What happens to Kira’s hands when she uses her gift?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What warning does Leader give Matty regarding his healing gift?
2. How has the tapestry, woven by Seer’s daughter Kira, that hangs on the wall of Seer and Matty’s homeplace changed?
3. Why does Kira decline Matty’s offer to heal her leg?
4. What does Leader see when he looks beyond at Kira and Matty that he does not share with Seer?
Paired Resource
“Understanding Ableism and Negative Reactions to Disability”
- This resource from the American Psychological Association defines ableism and explores the factors that motivate it.
- This resource will help students recognize the role that prejudice against people with disabilities plays in characterizing Kira’s village and Matty’s former home as a dystopia, in contrast to the accepting attitudes that Village holds (or held).
- The content in this article connects to the theme Identity, Difference, and Diversity.
- Why does Kira refuse Matty’s offer to fix her leg? How are Matty’s attitudes towards Kira’s disability ableist? How do they reflect the ableist society he and Kira grew up in? How is Village (at the beginning) different in its attitude towards disability?
“Overcoming Ableism: What You Don’t Know as an Able Bodied Person”
- This 11-minute Ted Talk features Naty Rico, an undergraduate student at UC Irvine living with disability. She discusses her experiences living with disability and the ways it has impacted her identity, the way she sees herself, and the ways that others perceive disability. She also discusses the impact community can have on creating positive change.
- This resource offers students insight into the lived experiences of people with diverse abilities, enabling them to make connections to Kira’s character and understand how her disability informs her character.
- This talk connects to the theme of Identity, Difference, and Diversity.
- What challenges does Kira face in her community as a result of her twisted leg? How is the way that Kira views her disability different from the way that Matty and others view her disability? How has her disability become a “part of her”?
CHAPTERS 16-19
Reading Check
1. What drips from the vines that burns Matty’s arms so badly?
2. What creature points Leader to the path when he has lost his way?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How has Forest changed?
2. What is different about Seer’s perceptions of Kira’s tapestry after he learns that Kira and Matty are in danger from Forest?
CHAPTERS 20-21
Reading Check
1. What trade does Matty ultimately make?
2. What name does Leader bestow upon Matty as his true name?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Frolic’s lifelessness symbolize the changes in Village?
2. How does Matty ultimately “spend” his gift?
Recommended Next Reads
Son by Lois Lowry
- In the final installment of The Giver Quartet, a young woman named Claire embarks on a journey to reunite with the child who was stolen from her by her totalitarian society.
- Shared themes include Identity, Diversity, and Difference.
- Shared topics include dystopian societies, loss, sacrifice, diversity and special gifts.
- Son on SuperSummary
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
- In a post-apocalyptic society built underground, 12-year-olds Lina and Doon discover clues that will help them save their society from darkness and uncover the truth about their world.
- Shared themes include Honesty, Openness, and Secrets and Selfishness Versus the Collective Good.
- Shared topics include dystopian societies, identity, and community.
- The City of Ember on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
CHAPTERS 1-5
Reading Check
1. A Gaming Machine (Chapter 1)
2. Messenger (Chapter 1)
3. Entanglement (Chapter 2)
4. Mentor (Chapter 4)
Short Answer
1. Village is full of kinder people who are more accepting of diversity and physical differences; while Mentor’s birthmark would have been cause for stoning in Matty’s old village, here it is accepted and celebrated. (Chapter 1) Leader insists that the residents of Village all be well-educated and treat each other with respect, kindness, and openness. (Chapter 3)
2. While Forest is a place of danger for the other people of Village, it is not for Matty. Forest is hostile to others, often only allowing them one or two passages through its paths before it warns them off with attacks from its trees; to enter again would mean they would be “entangled” (strangled by tree limbs). Forest appears to like Matty, however, as it lets him move through it without issue, and Matty even feels a special affinity with it. (Chapter 1)
3. Matty is surprised to learn that Mentor submitted the petition to close the border, because Mentor is usually a kindly man who values helping others, even helping Matty himself when he was new to Village. The desire to shut out others and turn them away from help is very unlike Mentor. After learning this, Seer warns Matty that selfishness has begun to creep into Village. (Chapter 4)
4. Matty healed a frog with a nearly dismembered leg with a frightening power of unknown origin. This power flows through Matty’s limbs like lightning, enabling him to repair the frog’s leg and bring it back to life from the near-fatal injury. Because Matty doesn’t understand this strange power, he keeps it a secret from Seer. (Chapter 5)
CHAPTERS 6-10
Reading Check
1. “Trade for what?” (Alternate acceptable answer: “Trade away what?”) (Chapter 7)
2. Mentor trades away his deepest self. (Chapter 8)
3. “Seeing beyond” (Chapter 10)
4. Seer’s daughter, Kira (Chapter 10)
Short Answer
1. At the welcoming of the newcomers, Matty notices that Mentor’s birthmark is lighter in color and that he appears taller. (Chapter 6)
2. At first, Trade Mart was a place where people traded for what they needed; now, however, it carries an air of secrecy, where people are ashamed to admit what they have traded away. (Chapter 6)
3. After making a trade, the people at Trade Mart appear to become more irritable and more self-absorbed—less kind, less tolerant. One woman, whom Matty notes is usually very gentle, cruelly mocks her husband who has a disability. (Chapter 7) People who have traded also become meaner; Matty learns from Jean that Mentor physically abused the puppy when he became annoyed with it, something that he never would have done before. (Chapter 8) In addition, the mother of Matty’s friend Ramon is callous towards her children’s illness, scolding them for coughing instead of attending to them. (Chapter 10)
CHAPTERS 11-15
Reading Check
1. According to Leader, Forest is “thickening.” (Chapter 11)
2. Kira has a twisted leg. (Chapter 13)
3. Kira can see the future through her weaving. (Chapter 14)
4. When Kira uses her gift, her hands shimmer. (Chapter 14)
Short Answer
1. Leader warns Matty to save his gift and not “spend it,” preserving it instead for a time of greatest need. (Chapter 11)
2. The scene depicted by the tapestry has suddenly become more foreboding; the threads representing Forest appear darker and more tangled. (Chapter 11)
3. Although Matty offers to use his power to heal Kira’s leg, Kira feels that she has lived her entire life with her leg as it is; it is a part of her now. Matty claims that he can “make [her] whole,” but Kira feels that she already is whole. (Chapter 14)
4. Leader can see through his special gift that Kira and Matty have entered Forest; however, he sees that Forest is preparing “to destroy them,” which he does not share with Seer. (Chapter 15)
CHAPTERS 16-19
Reading Check
1. Acidic sap (Chapter 16)
2. The frog that Matty healed (Chapter 19)
Short Answer
1. While Matty began to feel Forest’s increasing hostility on his journey to Kira’s village, he now feels the full danger it emanates. This is reflected in its landscape; now, the path is not visible due to the dense bushes and vines concealing it, which Kira and Matty must hack through. The vines drip acidic sap onto Matty, searing through the flesh of his arms. The trees poke out at Kira, hurting her feet. The sickly, rotting smell Matty noticed on the way there has intensified. (Chapter 16) In addition, Forest starts to entangle Matty for the first time. (Chapter 17)
2. After learning that Forest is attacking Matty and Kira, Seer touches Kira’s tapestry and feels that he can sense their impending deaths. (Chapter 18)
CHAPTERS 20-21
Reading Check
1. Matty trades himself for the wellness of Village and its people. (Chapter 21)
2. Healer (Chapter 21)
Short Answer
1. Matty contemplates how quickly something that was so full of life like Frolic was extinguished by the darkness of the Forest. The same thing has happened to Village, Matty thinks, as its people have become corrupted by selfishness, killing the community harmony that set Village apart as a utopia amidst a collection of broken, dystopian communities. Matty mourns the sudden loss of both his dog and his home. (Chapter 20)
2. Matty uses his healing powers to heal Forest and, by so doing, to heal the corruption that has taken root in Village. Using all the power he possesses, Matty reaches deep into the ground and lets his energy flow outwards to heal the entire Forest and Village, even though the action takes his life. (Chapter 21)
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