A SOUND OF THUNDER READING GUIDE

A SOUND OF THUNDER PRE-READING ACTIVITY

Time Traveler:
You will be reading A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury, a short story about time travel. Before you read, consider
if you could travel in time. Think about it and answer the following questions:

1) What, if anything, do you already know about time travel?

2) Do you know of any films or stories that feature time travel? If so, what are they?

3) If you were to time travel, where would you go in time?

4) To which year or period of time would you time travel?

5) Who would you want to meet or what event would you want to witness? Explain why.

6) Where would you find this person or see this event?

7) If you did time travel, how might you change history? Explain

8) Pretend that it is 100 years from today and people are going through a museum to learn about our time in
history. What will they find in the museum? What do these items say about us?

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 CREATING THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
A SOUND OF THUNDER PRE-READING ACTIVITY

Background:
Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? The driving theory behind the
butterfly effect is the notion that even the smallest of actions can result in
drastic changes. The name of the theory is derived from a hypothetical
example of this force in action proposed by the mathematician, Edward Norton
Lorenz. Lorenz proposed that even the simple action of a distant butterfly
flapping its wings could lead to the formation of a hurricane several weeks
later. Although the butterfly effect may appear to be a mysterious and unlikely
behavior, it does have real life applications. Consider if you were to place a ball
on the top of a small table, where the ball falls to the ground and whether the
ball even falls at all are all contingent on a number of smaller factors such as
the degree of slant of both the table and the ground on which it is placed, the texture of the ball and table, and
where you initially place the ball in relation to the edge of the table. The butterfly effect has even become a
common plot device used in science fiction when presenting scenarios involving time travel in which a
seemingly minor event can result in two significantly different outcomes. Like it or not, each action we take has
its unforeseen consequences, and sometimes, those consequences can be more devastating than we could ever
imagine.
Activity:
In this activity you will be provided with a scenario. From there, it will be your task to create a story based on
that scenario. However, here is the catch: your story must end drastically differently than it begins. Using the
idea behind the butterfly effect (that one small action can have drastic consequences), you will create a step by
step account of events to create your story. Each step must have an action, and each action must have a
consequence that is presented in the very next step. Use the example below as a model for how to construct
your story.
Example:
Scenario: Your friends put trick candles on your birthday cake.
Step #1: I try to blow out the candles, but they will not go out despite how hard I try.
Step #2: I get frustrated with the candles and pick them off the birthday cake, angrily throwing them
behind me.
Step #3: One of the candles hits the curtains on the wall behind me, and the wall goes up in flames because
my friends also thought it would be a hilarious if they soaked the curtains in lighter fluid. Unfortunately, I
have a poor sense of smell, so I do not know this.
Step #4: After the wall is ablaze, I search the house in vain for something to put out the fire. My wonderful
friends also thought: “Hey, won’t it be a great idea if we steal his cell phone and cut his phone lines!”
Thanks, guys. I pick up the only thing I can find around me that stands any chance of putting out this fire.
“Sorry, Nemo!” I exclaim grabbing my fishbowl and tossing it on the flames. Wouldn’t you know it? Nemo
wasn’t even in there and it is just more lighter fluid. Curse my poor sense of smell!
Step #5: I hurriedly rush out of the house to find the police, the fire department, and the paramedics are
pulling up at the curb of the charred remains of what was my house.
Step #6: After taking a moment to catch my breath, I hear a police officer say “You have the right to remain
silent” as he handcuffs my hands behind my back.
RESULT: So now I am here, sitting in jail under suspicion of arson. My friends fled the scene and are the
ones who called 9-1-1 claiming that I attacked them with a soufflé torch while screaming “BURN, BABY
BURN!!!!!!” at the top of my lungs. Looks like I am really going to need some better friends.

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Scenario: Choose from one of the following scenarios. Circle the one you choose.

 A test monkey escapes from a medical facility.  You family picks up a hitchhiker from the street.
 Someone cuts you off on the highway.  You miss your ride to school.
 Someone puts a mysterious note in your locker.  You see a flash of light outside of your bedroom window.
 You find out that you have inherited $1,000,000.  The teacher caught a student cheating on a test.

Step #1:

Step #2:

Step #3:

Step #4:

Step #5:

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Step #6:

RESULT:

A SOUND OF THUNDER READING GUIDE

Directions: Answer the following questions thoroughly.

1) What is the setting of the story?

2) How would you describe the personality traits of Eckels? 

3) How would you characterize the business practices of Time Safari, Inc.? Are they responsible? Reckless?
Explain.

4) Was Eckels justified in his initial fear of this adventure? Why or why not? Would you consider this
foreshadowing of the story?

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5) What is the tone used to describe Time Safari, Inc. in the following excerpt?
“’We guarantee nothing,’ said the official, ‘except the dinosaurs.’ He turned. ‘This is Mr. Travis, your Safari Guide in
the Past. He'll tell you what and where to shoot. If he says no shooting, no shooting. If you disobey instructions,
there's a stiff penalty of another ten thousand dollars, plus possible government action, on your return.’"

A) Compassionate B) Cautious C) Strict D) Aloof (not friendly)

Rationale/Evidence of your choice: Letter _______

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6) Why do you suppose the only animals that can be hunted are the ones about to die? Explain.

7) According to Travis, how can a small change in the past have a great effect on the future? (Remember our cause
and effect conversation.)

8) What emotion motivates Eckels to stray from the path? A) Anger B) Fear C) Curiosity D) Necessity

Rationale/Evidence of your choice: Letter _______

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9) At the end of the story, what event can the reader infer occurs from the quote, “There was a sound of thunder”?

10) Which of the following statements best expresses the theme of the story?

A) It is important to take advantages of opportunities when they present themselves.

B) Even it if becomes a possibility, people should not travel through time.

C) The choices one makes in the present can have a significant impact on the future.

D) If at first you don’t succeed, try again.

Rationale/Evidence of your choice: Letter _______

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11) Considering your own life, what happens when you leave your correct “path”? Is it possible that your actions
affect others? Can your actions impact or destroy the future in any way? (Connect to real life.)

LITERARY TERMS: Be able to apply each term to the story.

12) Foreshadowing are clues or hints of event that may occur later in the story. These clues build suspense and
enhance the story. In the chart below, read each quote from the story, and explain what event it foreshadowed.

Foreshadowing Quote Event it Foreshadows

Event it foreshadows:
A) “there’s a stiff penalty of another
ten thousand dollars, plus possible
government action, on your return.”

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B) "Eckles…stepped off the Path, and Event it foreshadows:
walked, not knowing it, in the jungle.
His feet sank into green moss."

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13) Find three similes from this story. For each simile state the quote (A), explain what two things are being
compared in the simile/quote (B) and how this image/comparison impacts the mood of the story (C).

Similes/Quotes (A) Two Things Being What Mood It Creates in

Compared (B) the Story (C)

14) The two metaphors describe the dinosaur from this story. Explain what two things are being compared in the
metaphor/quote (A) and how this image/comparison impacts the mood of the story (B).

Metaphors/Quotes Two Things Being What Mood It Creates in

Compared (A) the Story (C)

“It towered thirty feet above half of the

trees, a great evil god”

“And the head itself, a ton of sculptured

stone”

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Reading for Information/Comparing Texts

Magazine Article: From Here to There: The Physics of Time Travel by Brad Stone
Considering time travel, one wonders if they ever will be a tourist visiting the past? If so, would the fate of a
prehistoric butterfly actually shape the fate of a civilization? Critical questions like these have been and continue to
be the debate among physicists who study the potential of time travel.

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 TIME TRAVEL—it’s the dream
of every Science-fiction hack
who’s ever picked up a pen, and
the fantasy of many of the rest
of us, too. How wonderful to go
back and right the wrongs of
the past! But time travel could
also let you go back and cause
an accident that kills your
great-great-grandfather,
negating your own existence
and provoking a potentially
universe-ending paradox. At
least that’s what armchair
temporal theorists worry about.
But not Paul Nahin. He’s a
professor of electrical
engineering at the University of
New Hampshire and the author
of Time Machines: Time Travel
in Physics, Metaphysics, and
Science Fiction. And he’s able to
translate into plain English an
ongoing, esoteric debate
between some of the smartest
minds in physics over whether
time travel is actually possible.
“The laws of physics as we
know them now don’t disallow
time travel,” explains the 57-
yearold Nahin. “Anything that
physics doesn’t forbid must be
considered.”
Scientific consideration of
time travel has its roots, with
much of modern physics, in the
genius of Albert Einstein, who
married space and time in his
theory of relativity. Doing
further work on relativity in
1948, mathematician
Kurt Gö del declared that it Other physicists, hoping to prove
would actually be possible to that time travel is theoretically
travel through time under the possible, have devised on paper
right conditions. Serious four different ways to do it. But all
scientists didn’t give the require unrealistic quantities of
matter much thought until the energy under hugely improbable
mid-’80s, when Carl Sagan’s conditions.
novel Contact sent its heroine
on a journey through space- Each proposal has supporters and
time via a wormhole (a detractors. But the one thing that
theoretical hyperspace tunnel physicists don’t waste much time on
connecting two points of the is the paradoxes—like altering the
universe). That intrigued present by killing someone in the
researchers at Caltech, who past. Nahin says time-travel
three years later released a paradoxes are “manifestations of
groundbreaking report on the imperfect understanding.” So,
plausibility of traveling whatever the resolution of the time-
through wormholes. travel debate, rest assured that
grandpa is safe.
British physicist Stephen
Hawking has been the most
prominent skeptic,
hypothesizing that any attempt
at time travel would lead to a
“back reaction,” a massive
buildup of energy that would
rip space apart. His theory is
called the Chronology
Protection Conjecture, since
it would make history safe
from explorers who might
meddle in important historical
events. The best evidence
against time
travel, according to Hawking’s
writings, is that “we have not
been invaded by hordes of
tourists from the future.”
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Non-Fiction Synthesis

Directions: Now that you have read both the short story, “A Sound of Thunder” and the expository article, “From
Here to There: The Physics of Time Travel” answer the questions that follow. Support your answers with evidence
from the texts.

1) What is the central idea of the article?

A) The debate about time travel continues to fascinate scientists and the public alike.

B) If time travel occurs, humans will be able to alter the course of history.

C) Time travel is irrelevant (not important) and not worth studying.

D) There is overwhelming evidence to support the possibility of time travel.

Rationale/Evidence of your choice: Letter _______

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2) According to Professor Nahin, is time travel possible? Justify your answer with details from the article.

3) From where does the scientific “consideration of time travel” stem (originate)?

4) According to Dr. Hawking, what could potentially happen if someone attempted time travel?

5) Which statement best supports the idea that time travel is dangerous?
A) “The laws of physics as we know them don’t disallow time travel.”

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 B) “We have not been invaded by the hordes of tourists from the future.”

C) “But time travel could also let you go back, cause an accident that kills your great-great-grandfather,

negating your own existence”

D) “Nahin says time travel paradoxes are ‘manifestations of imperfect understanding.’”

Rationale/Evidence of your choice: Letter _______

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6) Based on the sentence below from the article, what is the meaning of the word paradox?

“But the one thing that physicists don’t waste much time on is the paradoxes—like altering the present by killing

someone in the past.”

A) A statement that is the same as a definition.

B) A statement that is true and accurate.

C) A statement that provides evidence to prove it true.

D) A statement that apparently contradicts itself and yet might be true.

Rationale/Evidence of your choice: Letter _______

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7) State the theme of “Sound of Thunder”:

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