By Mr Hull's Movie Guides
Watch the Trailer
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 12-page classroom-ready resource.
Three differentiated sets of chronological comprehension questions. Answer keys are included for all three sets.
- 50 full-sentence question set.
- Shorter 35-question full-sentence set.
- 35 multiple choice question set, well suited to ESL students.
- A 9-scene storyboard of what they judge to be the movie's most important moments, with a brief description for each scene.
- A synopsis of the movie, written using that storyboard.
Why Watch This Movie With Your Students
Here's what your students naturally take away from the movie, whether through themes, values, ideas, or perspectives.
🕰️ A gentle, guided step into horror. The movie was built as an introduction to the horror genre for younger viewers, easing from lighter, funnier scares into a more intense final act. Students who are curious about horror but not ready for anything graphic get a controlled, age-appropriate way to test that interest.
🧳 A story about grief without saying the word. Lewis has just lost both parents, and that loss shapes almost everything he does, including the choice that puts the story in motion. The movie never turns this into a lecture, but it gives students a concrete example of how grief can quietly influence a character's decisions.
👨👩👦 A household nobody planned for. Jonathan is Lewis's uncle by blood, but he is unprepared to raise a child, and Mrs. Zimmerman has no obligation to either of them at all. The movie shows the three building something that works anyway, through effort and choice rather than a ready-made family structure, which opens up conversation about what holds a family together.
📚 A bookish, curious kid as the hero. Lewis is quiet, awkward, and would rather read the dictionary than fit in with the popular kids at his new school. The movie makes his curiosity and love of learning the exact qualities that save the day, which is a message worth putting in front of students who feel the same way about themselves.
🎃 A genuinely fitting Halloween watch. Jack-o'-lanterns, a haunted-looking mansion, and a plot that peaks on Halloween night make this a natural seasonal pick. It has the atmosphere of a spooky season classic without needing an R rating to get there.
🎭 Jack Black and Cate Blanchett playing off each other. Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmerman trade insults and banter throughout the movie, and that dynamic gives it a comedic backbone even in its darker moments. Students get to see two very different performance styles working together to carry a story that keeps shifting tone.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated PG.
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- Frequent creepy imagery and several jump scares.
- One scene shows a child bullied at school, pushed against a wall and punched.
- Mild language is used a few times, including 'hell' and 'damn.'
- No drinking, drug use, or smoking is shown in the movie.
📋 A free editable parent permission slip is available for this movie. It explains the educational benefits of watching movies in class and includes a space for parental consent. → Download Free Permission Slip on TpT (Free resource)
Note for educators: Movie details and age ratings in this post are sourced from IMDb, Common Sense Media, and Wikipedia to help ensure accuracy.
How My Movie Guide Helps You Teach It
Click your subject below to see how this guide supports it:
📚 English Language Arts Teachers
🗣️ ESL and ELL Teachers
🌐 Social Studies Teachers
🎬 Substitute Teachers and Cover Lessons
🏠 Homeschool Parents
💙 SEL Teachers
🌟 Supporting All Learners A movie gives students a story to follow, and the guide gives them questions to work through as they watch. For students with autism, learning difficulties, and mild to severe disabilities, that combination provides a clear focus for the lesson and a concrete way to show understanding. The format can be useful in special education and learning support classrooms, where teachers need activities that give students a defined task during viewing. Find out more about why movies work for diverse learners.
The guide does not include dedicated social studies or SEL activities. The comprehension questions are what keep students accountable for these parts of the movie while they watch.
How These Guides Work: From Movie to Lesson
Watching a movie is not a break from learning. It reaches students through sight, sound, and story at once, engaging the brain in ways text alone does not, and the structured work around it is what turns the viewing into a genuine lesson. You can read the research behind this on the Why Movies Work page.
- A Teacher Notes and General Directions page opens the guide with a brief overview of everything inside: what the movie is about, then each part of the guide in order with a short description of what it entails. You know what to expect from the whole resource before you hand out a single page, so you can pick up the guide cold and teach it the same day.
- Answer keys are included for the comprehension question sets, so grading is quick and you are not rewatching the movie to check answers. Some guides also include example answers for the creative and written activities.
- Print and go: classroom ready, with no additional preparation needed. Print one the morning you need it and the lesson is ready.
- Substitute and first-timer friendly. A guide can be handed to a substitute or picked up by a teacher covering the topic for the first time. Nobody running the session needs to have seen the movie.
- Differentiated comprehension sets. Most guides include two or three question sets at different difficulty levels, and most include a multiple-choice option that works well for ESL and ELL students. One class set covers your strongest readers, your strugglers, and your language learners without separate prep.
- Activities that go beyond recall. Each guide includes structured activities that ask students to engage with the movie, not just watch it, ranging from creative and written tasks to discussion and critical thinking questions depending on the guide. That variety matters in a mixed classroom: a student who freezes on a written question set may show real understanding through a drawing or a creative task, and a confident writer gets room to go beyond recall. For the teacher, it turns a movie session into work you can grade: comprehension questions show whether students followed the plot, and the activities beyond them show whether they understood it.
