To Build a Fire

Grade Levels

Excerpt

• “To Build a Fire” is set in the Alaska wilderness. After reading the first paragraph of the story, what is your reaction to the setting? In your opinion, which particular words and phrases in the paragraph describe the setting most vividly?
• How does the author emphasize that the man is surrounded by a vast frozen wilderness, an empty landscape that stretches farther than the eye can see? If you were going to film the beginning of the story, how would you do it? What images would you capture for a movie audience?
• The man is “a newcomer in the land,” but lack of experience is not his main problem. The author writes, “The trouble with him was that he was without imagination.” What does the man fail to imagine? How does it relate to human mortality and to his place in the natural world?

About

These eNotes Reading Response Prompts are designed to encourage your students to read more effectively and with more pleasure by giving them interesting subjects to write about after they have read. Many of the prompts will take them directly into the text, while others will give them an opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings and to reflect on their own experiences.

A second purpose of the eNotes Reading Response Prompts is to facilitate instruction in ways that work for you in the classroom. The organization of the prompts makes them easy to use, and the content and construction of the prompts are designed to develop students’ knowledge and academic skills.