The Martian Chronicles

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

“January 1999: Rocket Summer”

Reading Check

1. What is the story’s setting?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why do people call this day “Rocket Summer”?

“February 1999: Ylla”

Reading Check

1. Who appears to Ylla in her dreams?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why does Yll insist that Ylla stay home on the day of the rocket landing?

“August 1999: The Summer Night”

Reading Check

1. Which expedition is about to arrive in August of 1999?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What kinds of behavior cause chaos on the night before the expedition arrives?

“August 1999: The Earth Men”

Reading Check

1. Who is the first Martian that Captain Williams encounters?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does dramatic irony heighten the reader’s response to the encounter between Mr. Xxx and Williams’s crew?

Paired Resource

“Native Intelligence”

• This article from Smithsonian Magazine explores the complicated political decisions the Wampanoag were faced with when Europeans arrived.
• This resource relates to the theme of The Nature of Colonialism and The Destructiveness of Human Nature.
• What is Mann’s main point about the Wampanoag response to European incursion? How much sophistication does Bradbury attribute to the Martians? If the Martians are analogous to Indigenous peoples of the Americas, how realistic is Bradbury’s portrayal?

“March 2000: The Taxpayer”

Reading Check

1. What does Pritchard say people believe will happen on Earth within two years?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How do Pritchard’s thoughts as he watches the rocket launch shed light on his motives for wanting to go to Mars?

“April 2000: The Third Expedition”

Reading Check

1. Where and when does the woman tell Captain Black and his crew they have landed?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does Captain Black realize too late about the Martians’ plans?

“June 2001: —And the Moon Be Still as Bright”

Reading Check

1. What human illness has killed many Martians?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How do Spender’s decisions in making the fire on Mars foreshadow future events?

“August 2001: The Settlers”

Reading Check

1. What do the settlers compare Earth to as they see it shrinking in the distance?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How do the settlers’ feelings change once they are finally leaving Earth?

Paired Resource

“Things We Carry on the Sea”

• This accessible poem by Wang Ping shares the pain of separation from home and the feelings of uncertainty that can come with immigration.
• This resource relates to the theme of The Trap of Nostalgia.
• Is the nostalgia in Wang Ping’s poem more similar to the feelings that the settlers have in “August 2001: The Settlers” or the feelings that the crew experiences in “June 2001: —And the Moon Be Still as Bright”? Is the nostalgia that any of these people are feeling a healthy, productive feeling?

“December 2001: The Green Morning”

Reading Check

1. What does Benjamin Driscoll plant?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why does Benjamin Driscoll undertake his planting project?

“February 2002: The Locusts”

Reading Check

1. What does the story’s title refer to?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What seems to motivate most of the settlers’ activities in this story?

“August 2002: Night Meeting”

Reading Check

1. When Tomás stops at the Martian town, what does he think the air smells like?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What belief do Pops and Tomás share?

“October 2002: The Shore”

Reading Check

1. What is the nationality of the new wave of settlers in this story?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is the main way in which the new settlers’ motives differ from those of the original wave of settlers?

Paired Resource

“Locust Plague Devours 40,000 Tonnes of Vegetation”

• This 3-minute BBC Earth video demonstrates how devastating a locust swarm can be.
• This resource relates to the theme of The Destructiveness of Human Nature.
• How does the use of the word “locusts” characterize the settlers? What does comparing them to an insect imply about their motives and understanding? What does the time confusion in “August 2002: Night Meeting” imply might be true about the settlers’ efforts to turn Mars into another Earth?

“February 2003: Interim”

Reading Check

1. What gets delivered to Mars in large quantities?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does the author use an allusion to The Wizard of Oz to describe the new towns on Mars?

“April 2003: The Musicians”

Reading Check

1. Where do the boys go that their parents have warned them not to go?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What job do the firemen on Mars perform?

“June 2003: Way in the Middle Air”

Reading Check

1. What is the source of the story’s title?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What point is Silly making when he asks Teece how he will fill his nights once all the town’s Black residents are gone?

“2004-2005: The Naming of Names”

Reading Check

1. What do some of the new immigrants bring with them from Earth that upsets the earlier settlers?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What analogy is Bradbury making in his description of how the settlers name places?

“April 2005: Usher II”

Reading Check

1. What is William Bigelow’s profession?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does Stendhal blame most of the deaths in this story on?

“August 2005: The Old Ones”

Reading Check

1. Which wave of settlers is filled with the elderly?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

What do the descriptions of elderly settlers all emphasize?

“September 2005: The Martian”

Reading Check

1. How did Tom die?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does the Martian shapeshifter die?

Paired Resource

“Nostalgia Relieves the Disillusioned Mind”

• This journal article shares research into the relationship between disillusionment and seeking comfort in nostalgia.
• This resource relates to the theme of The Trap of Nostalgia.
• What do the researchers conclude makes nostalgia rewarding for people disappointed in their present realities? What light does this research shed on the various forms of nostalgia characters feel in The Martian Chronicles?

“November 2005: The Luggage Store”

Reading Check

1. What is the name of the customer in the luggage store?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why does the store owner believe people will soon leave Mars?

“November 2005: The Off Season”

Reading Check

1. What kind of business does Sam Parkhill run?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does Elma mean when she remarks that it will be an “off season”?

“November 2005: The Watchers”

Reading Check

1. What message does Earth send to Mars?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does gazing at Earth change people’s feelings about the war?

“December 2005: The Silent Towns”

Reading Check

1. What is Walter’s job?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What are Walter’s hopes when he hears the phone ring?

“April 2026: The Long Years”

Reading Check

1. How long has it been since the Hathaways last saw a rocket?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What shocking discovery does Wilder make about the Hathaways?

“August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains”

Reading Check

1. Where does the story take place?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is the subject of Teasdales’s poem “There Will Come Soft Rains”?

“October 2026: The Million-Year Picnic”

Reading Check

1. What does William do with all his papers from Earth?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does William mean when he tells his children that they will soon see Martians?

Recommended Next Reads 

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

• Another collection of linked short stories by Bradbury, The Illustrated Man explores the degradation of culture and environment and the complex roles of science and technology.
• Shared themes include The Trap of Nostalgia, The Nature of Colonialism, and The Destructiveness of Human Nature.
• Shared topics include New Wave science fiction, cultural critique, Mars, space colonies, human relationships, and technology.
• The Illustrated Man on SuperSummary

Desolation Road by Ian McDonald

• This book by Ian McDonald is a sweeping story that follows human colonizers on Mars through several generations, focusing on the eccentric town of Desolation Road.
• Shared themes include The Nature of Colonialism and The Destructiveness of Human Nature.
• Shared topics include New Wave science fiction, cultural critique, Mars, space colonies, human relationships, and technology.