Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH explores animal intelligence. What do you know about animal intelligence? Do you know of any animals that can do unexpected things? How do you think animal intelligence might be studied?

Teaching Suggestion: Discussion and/or brief investigation of this question will help set a solid foundation for students’ understanding of the experiment discussed in the book and provide a good baseline for typical animal behavior. This foundation will help them understand how extraordinary the experiment in the book is as well as how unlikely it is that an experiment like it would be performed in the real world. This understanding will help students remain focused on the more important and more philosophical themes O’Brien presents, such as The Double-Edged Sword of Knowledge and Technology and Literacy as Power.

• “Inside the Minds of Animals” is a 5-minute video from TED-Ed explaining some perspectives on what animal intelligence is, how it is studied, and which animals show surprising skills and abilities.

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