Content Reviewed: 9/20/12
es
AIG Reviewed: 7/24/12
NCDPI -- AIG Instructional Resource: Background Information
Need Revisions (Y/N): Y
Complete:
Date Submitted:
November 10, 2012
Resource Title:
“The Hitchhiker” by Roald Dahl
Subject Area/Grade Level (s):
Time Frame
ELA 7
3-4 class periods
Common Core/Essential Standard Addressed:
(Acceleration of RL.7.3)-RL9-10.3 – Analyze how complex characters (e.g. those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the
course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
(Acceleration of RL.7.6)- RL9-10.5 Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it, and manipulate
time create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
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Additional Standards Addressed:
(integration across topics, within or across disciplines)
Brief Description of Lesson/Task/Activity:
(include how this lesson/task/activity fits with a larger context)
Students will consider author’s choices and methods for creating such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. Students will read the short story
“The Hitchhiker” by Roald Dahl, analyze the author’s purpose and choice as they read, then use the information they have learned to create their
own skit of their own, considering the same elements, such as how to structure a text, order events within it, and manipulate time to create
mystery, tension, or surprise.
Type of Differentiation for AIGs (include all that apply)
Enrichment
 Extension
 Acceleration
Adaptations for AIGs
 Content
 Process
Product
Explanation of How Resource is Appropriate for AIGs
This lesson provides AIGs an opportunity to work with an open-ended learning experience – one without a right or wrong answer. AIGs will work
in collaborative groups with other AIGs. The process involves analyzing literature using accelerated goals from RL9-10.3 and then utilizing that
information to mimic the author’s choices as they create a skit based on a self-selected scenario.
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Needed Resources/Materials
Copies of “The Hitchhiker” by Roald Dahl
Sources (all sources must be cited)
TEACHER NOTES
If copies of the short story are not available, this lesson can be modified to work with other short stories with similar mystery, tension, and
surprise and where the text provides students with an open ended product that requires students to model an author’s choice of technique.
NCDPI AIG Curriculum Resource Outline
Describe processes, steps, and materials needed at each stage of the lesson/activity.
STAGE ONE: Engage
 Hook
 Prior knowledge
 Instructional input
 Modeling
Description:
1. Ask students if they have ever seen a person attempting to “hitch” a ride, or “hitchhike,” on the side of the road during travels. Why do
hitchhikers solicit rides from other drivers rather than seek other forms of transportation?
2. The teacher can inform students that it is illegal in the US to hitchhike; however, it is legal and in some places encouraged to hitchhike in
certain European countries. Students may be asked to consider why there are such differences based on prior knowledge of geography and
history of Europe. This may be an extension that could be taken on by the Social Studies teacher.
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STAGE TWO: ELABORATE
 Guided and independent practice
 Guiding questions
Description:
1. Read “The Hitchhiker” by Roald Dahl as a group, or have students read it independently.
a. Questions to ask:
1. How does the author reveal the hitchhiker’s character at the beginning of the short story? (by indirect characterization –
describing his appearance “some sort of a huge human rat”)
2. How is it obvious the narrator is sympathetic to the hitchhiker’s needing a ride? (he tells the reader his own experiences of
hitching a ride)
3. Why do you think the author reveals the hitchhiker’s job/career so late in the story? (because his career is the twist, the ironic
ending)
4. How does the author’s slow character development of the hitchhiker cause conflict throughout the story? (it creates suspense and
heightens the tension between the narrator and the hitchhiker.)
5. Explain how the author’s choice of intentional slow character development causes mystery, tension, and surprise. (the twist is that
the hitchhiker is a very good thief, which is useful for the narrator yet contradictory of his initial thoughts of the man.)
6. How does the setting (Great Britain) influence your perspective of the driver as he picks up a hitchhiker? How might an American
see the act of picking up a hitchhiker? (It is acceptable and encouraged in GB; it is illegal and considered dangerous in the US)
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2. Extension Exercise- Directions to students:
Working with a partner, imagine, script, and be prepared to act out a story that deals with an everyday event, such as picking up a
hitchhiker. Apply the same technique of suspense as you experienced in “The Hitchhiker”. Create a twist at the end that will surprise the
reader and that will contribute to the conflict of your story.
Possible topics (students can brainstorm more): cooking a meal, answering the phone, replying to a letter, responding to an ad in the
newspaper, running in a marathon, etc)
STAGE THREE: EVALUATE

Assessment
Description:
The teacher should share the criteria for assessment with the students prior to skit presentations.
Criteria are based on RL9-10.3 and RL9-10.5
____ The students create a skit that uses complex characters like those in “The Hitchhiker”
____ The characters within the skit develop in a way that is parallel to “The Hitchhiker.”
____ The plot of the skit is shaped through character development.
____ The skit’s structure creates mystery, tension, or surprise.
____ The skit includes a twist like that in “The Hitchhiker.”
TEACHER NOTES:
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