There Will Come Soft Rains
By Ray Bradbury
Unit Learning Intentions
• To examine and analyse the characters in the
story;
• To appreciate the style and language used in the
story;
• To practice skills in Textual Analysis;
• To explore imagery and learn how to analyse
images at Higher level;
• To explore the thematic content of the story;
• To develop group work skills;
• To learn critical essay skills.
There Will Come Soft Rains
This is a science-fiction story that is set in the
aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. The futuristic
house is the only one remaining in the city and
still serves its now absent family, following the
same daily routines as it always has. In the end,
a fire starts and the house is destroyed.
Today’s Lesson
Learning Intentions:
• To read the story;
• To test your understanding of the story;
• To develop skills in evaluating the story;
• To begin working in pairs or groups.
Today’s Lesson
Working in pairs or groups, answer the following
questions. Each person should write their own
answers down.
You should answer in full sentences to help you
revise the story in the future.
1. How do you know that no one is living in the
house? Identify some of the ways the author
lets you know this from the start of the story.
2. Find and write down the line from the story that
lets us know what has happened to the city.
3. The author includes some beautiful descriptions
of the house. Find two such descriptions and for
each, explain why you think the author included
them.
4. What happens to cause the fire, and how does
the house try to combat it?
5. Why do these methods fail to put out the fire?
What do you think this says about the fire?
6. Do you find the ending satisfactory? Explain
why.
Characters
Learning Intentions:
• To examine the use of characters in the story;
• To begin analysing the characterisation;
• To develop skills in group work.
Characters
Bradbury’s story is unusual in that it contains no
living human characters at all. This means we
must look elsewhere when talking about
characters.
Dog
House
Fire
CHARACTERS
Robots
Absent
Humans
Bradbury uses non-human and inanimate
characters in his story. He does this by using
personification to bring the inanimate objects to
life.
You are going to work in groups to analyse one
character.
Group Work
Your group will be given questions to answer.
Your answers to these questions will be
collected, photocopied and distributed to the
rest of the class so it is important that you
answer them as fully as possible so your
classmates will benefit from them.
Language and Style
Learning Intentions:
• To examine the language and style of the
author;
• To begin analysing the imagery and
techniques used at Higher level;
• To continue developing group work skills.
Language and Style
As has already been discussed, this story uses a
lot of personification to give life to the
characters – particularly the house and the fire.
However, there are other images and techniques
worthy of discussion.
How to deal with imagery…
When looking at images, it is not enough to say
what it means. You must explain the
connotations of the image as well. This means
really getting to the heart of it and being as
specific as possible.
For example…
As Samantha walked past the bus stop full of
wolf-whistling boys, she looked as proud as a
peacock.
Question – Comment on the use of this simile.
A possible answer could be:
This simile is effective because it shows that
Samantha was proud, just like a peacock.
While this answer isn’t wrong, it doesn’t really
have enough depth to gain any marks at Higher.
Consider this answer instead:
This is an effective simile because peacocks are
proud and vain creatures that strut around
showing off. This suggests that Samantha is also
vain and, like a peacock, is parading confidently
past the boys at the bus stop in an attempt to
make them notice her and enjoying the attention
they are giving her.
This answer is MUCH more detailed – there is
absolutely no doubt that the person who wrote it
understands the image very well.
This is the level of depth that is required in your
discussion of the images on your sheet.
Again, your answers will be shared with the class so
make sure your notes will make sense to the rest of
the class.
As a Class
Let’s discuss the following image:
The only mention of the humans in the story is
the description of the silhouettes on the wall:
“The entire west face of the house was black,
save for five places … ball which never came
down.” (p.111)
Example Answer – Number
One
The images of the family left behind in paint suggest the
lifestyle this family had. The father is mowing the lawn
and the mother is picking flowers, suggesting this house
is in a suburban area where the gardens were well
maintained – stereotypical white-picket fence
neighbourhood. The image of the children playing adds to
the tragedy of the incident. The fact that they were killed
during play makes the nuclear attack seem worse – it has
killed innocence. The phrase “a ball which will never
come down” makes the image all the more poignant as it
highlights how vast the destruction has been: the children
will never finish their game of catch; they will never be
anything other than images in paint.
Themes
Learning Intentions:
• To start identifying the main themes of the
story,
• To be able to select relevant areas of the story
that exemplify that theme,
• To create a mind-map / revision aid poster for
display on one of the themes.
Themes
Bradbury’s story is science-fiction. Most sci-fi
stories contain some sort of message about
what the future could be like.
• What do you think are the main themes or
messages the story is trying to communicate?
• How do these themes manifest themselves in
the story?
Themes
Having discussed these themes broadly, you are
now going to work together to produce a mindmap style poster focussing on one theme. Your
poster should include:
• What the theme is (obviously!)
• Key incidents or events from the story to
exemplify the theme,
• Quotations from the story that could be used
in an essay.
Critical Essay Practice
Learning Intentions:
• To begin familiarising ourselves with the sorts
of essay questions you may be faced with at
Higher,
• To look at example essay questions and be able
to identify the best question for our essay,
• To look at how to plan and structure the essay,
• To work together to produce an essay on the
story.
Essay Questions
Hopefully from Standard Grade and S5, you
should be familiar with how the essay questions
from exam papers are worded.
They are always general in terms of the text you
can write about and they will ask you to focus
on a generalised area of a text – e.g. theme,
characters, setting etc.
Let’s look at an example Higher paper.
Notice it is split into sections:
Section A – Drama
Section B – Prose (fiction and non-fiction)
Section C – Poetry
Section D – Mass Media
Section E – Language.
Section B - Prose
The questions in this section are split into fiction
and non-fiction. In more recent papers, they
have divided them with sub-headings.
Let’s look at the 3 fiction prose questions.
We will discuss each one in turn.
Question 5
• The fact that this question requires you to
focus on a novel means that in an exam you
couldn’t do it. For the purposes of today, we’ll
imagine it says ‘novel or short story’.
•‘important human issue’ – what could that be?
Question 6
• In an exam you could do this: ‘novel or short
story’.
• ‘conflict between two main characters’ – how
could this apply to our story?
• ‘important theme’ – what theme does the
conflict explore?
Question 7
• Again, the questions specifies novel, but for
today we will imagine the phrase ‘or short story’
is included.
• This question focuses on the ‘effectiveness of
[the] ending’ – why is the ending effective?
• ‘Explain how the ending satisfies you and adds
to your appreciation of the novel [or short
story]’ – why is the ending appropriate to the
story?
Which Question???
Using all we have discussed, it is now down to
you to pick a question to answer as a class. If we
all do the same question, we can all help each
other.
Reading the Question
Once you’ve picked your question it is important
to read it carefully so you know what you are
being asked to do.
• ‘conflict between two main characters’ – house
and fire.
• how conflict is used ‘to explore important
theme’ – survival? Technology?
Planning Your Essay
Learning Intentions:
• To look at how to plan an essay to respond to
the question,
• To understand the importance of planning,
• To look at how to structure paragraphs to
ensure they meet the standard of Higher.
Planning Your Essay
To write a detailed and informed answer to the
question, you must think of how you can best
organise your knowledge of the story to suit
what the question is asking.
One of the most effective ways to do this is to
make a plan.
Why Plan?
When you plan you are:
• Sorting through your knowledge of the text so that you
know what you’ll talk about;
• Getting the ‘thinking’ part of the essay out of the way –
if your thoughts are in order before you start writing, all
you have to do is write!
• Giving yourself a checklist – essays sometimes take on a
life of their own and things can get missed out.
• Making sure you don’t lose track of what you are meant
to be doing – it’s easy to get caught up in analysis that
doesn’t actually deal with the question.
How to Plan
Spider Diagram
Checklist
• Paragraph 1
Para 1
– Point A
Point A
• Paragraph 2
– Point B
Para 4
Point D
Essay
Para 2
• Paragraph 3
Point B
– Point C
• Paragraph 4
Para 3
Point C
– Point D
Writing the Essay
Learning Intentions:
• To learn how to write introductions,
• To learn how to structure main paragraphs,
• To learn the importance and function of
conclusions.
Writing the Essay
An introduction at Higher is the same as in any
other essay you’ve ever written. It must:
• Mention the title and author
• Explain what the essay will focus on.
However, at Higher, you need to be a lot more
sophisticated with how you go about writing it.
Look at the following examples:
Example Intro One
The short story ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ by
Ray Bradbury focuses on a conflict between two
of the main characters. In the end the conflict
results in the destruction of one of the
characters raising the issue of survival. In this
essay I will discuss this theme and how the
conflict between the two characters illustrates
it.
Example Intro One Comments
• Too general – say who the characters are;
• Too mysterious – it’s OK to give away the
ending;
• Too basic – “In this essay I will…” is not very
sophisticated.
Example Intro Two
The short story ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ by
Ray Bradbury skilfully uses a conflict to illustrate
the theme of survival. In the story, a fire
destroys a house and, through the use of
personification, Bradbury portrays the fire as a
conflict between two sentient beings. This
conflict, and the house’s attempts to put out the
fire, highlights the theme of survival and shows
how powerful the desperation to survive can be.
Example Intro Two Comments
• Specifies characters and themes;
• Gives an overview of the story;
• Makes links between the conflict and the
theme to allow the reader insight as to what the
essay is about;
• Is subtle in the statement about what the
essay is about.
Intro Practice
Write an introduction to your critical essay.
When finished, swap with a partner to compare
how you’ve gone about it.
Swap back, and write a second introduction,
changing the first one significantly.
Swap jotters again to share the intros that have
been written.
Structuring Your Paragraphs
From S5, (and possible from S4) you should be
familiar with the following structure:
• P – Point: make a statement that you will
explore in your paragraph
• E – Evidence: provide evidence in the form of a
quotation to prove your point (sometimes called
example)
• A – Analysis: explain how the evidence
supports your point (sometimes called explain)
Planning Your Essay
While there is nothing wrong with that
structure, using it so rigidly will not serve you
well at Higher. At best, you will get a C.
Your paragraphs need to contain all of those
things, but they should also be more fluid than
that structure would suggest. Compare the
following examples:
Example Para One
At the start of the story we get the impression that the
house is able to survive anything. We learn that the
house is the “one house left standing.” This lets us know
that the house has managed to live through the terrible
war which has reduced the city to “rubble and ashes”
which creates the impression it is resilient. This
impression continues when we learn that the house
attempts to protect itself from the wildlife outside. When
foxes or birds come near the house it shuts itself up in a
way that is described as being “an old-maidenly
preoccupation with self-preservation.” Here we get the
impression that having survived the nuclear war, the
house is determined to continue “living” as long as
possible.
Example Para One Comments
•
•
•
•
•
It covers the things in the plan;
Info is all relevant and valid;
It is written clearly and fairly fluently;
It uses good quotations;
It has a slightly formulaic approach – see next
slide;
• Imbalance between evidence and analysis
Points = yellow Evidence = red Analysis = green
Example Para One
At the start of the story we get the impression that the
house is able to survive anything. We learn that the
house is the “one house left standing.” This lets us know
that the house has managed to live through the terrible
war which has reduced the city to “rubble and ashes”
which creates the impression it is resilient. This
impression continues when we learn that the house
attempts to protect itself from the wildlife outside. When
foxes or birds come near the house it shuts itself up in a
way that is described as being “an old-maidenly
preoccupation with self-preservation.” Here we get the
impression that having survived the nuclear war, the
house is determined to continue “living” as long as
possible.
Example Para Two
The house at the start of the story already has the persona of
a survivor. We are told it is “the one house left standing” in a
“city of rubble and ashes”. The fact that the city gives of a
“radioactive glow” creates the impression that there has been
a nuclear attack, so the fact that this house is the only one
remaining suggests an air of defiance and victory. We already
start to feel that the house has the ability to endure adversity
and withstand great turbulence, that it is resilient and will not
be conquered by anything. This will to survive is further
illustrated by the house’s reaction to unwanted guests and
strangers as we are told it has an “old-maidenly preoccupation
with self-protection” as it tried to defend itself against the
“lonely foxes and whining cats” that come past. All of this
create the impression that the house can withstand anything
and is strong and stead-fast.
Example Para Two - Comments
• Has more analysis of the character;
• The quotations flow much more easily into the
structure of the sentences;
• The quotations serve to promote rather than
back up claims already made – they are used
as part of the point itself.
Your Turn!
• Begin writing the main body section of your
essay.
• After each paragraph, swap with a partner to
compare the different approaches – the best
way to improve your own writing is to look at
examples of other writing!
• After looking at your classmates’ jotter, you
may wish to re-write your paragraph to
practice different approaches.
Example Para Two
The house at the start of the story already has the persona of
a survivor. We are told it is “the one house left standing” in a
“city of rubble and ashes”. The fact that the city gives of a
“radioactive glow” creates the impression that there has been
a nuclear attack, so the fact that this house is the only one
remaining suggests an air of defiance and victory. We already
start to feel that the house has the ability to endure adversity
and withstand great turbulence, that it is resilient and will not
be conquered by anything. This will to survive is further
illustrated by the house’s reaction to unwanted guests and
strangers as we are told it has an “old-maidenly preoccupation
with self-protection” as it tried to defend itself against the
“lonely foxes and whining cats” that come past. All of this
create the impression that the house can withstand anything
and is strong and stead-fast.
Conclusion
The definition of a conclusion is (according to
thefreedictionary.com):
• 1. The close or last part; the end or finish.
• 2. The result or outcome of an act or process.
• 3. A judgment or decision reached after
deliberation.
Conclusion
Your conclusion needs to recap on the main
points on your essay, offering an evaluative
statement about the success (or otherwise) of
the text you have studied.
As with everything we’ve looked at so far, the
more sophisticated your conclusion is, the
better.