By Mr Hull's Movie Guides
Watch the Trailer
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 15-page classroom-ready resource.
Three sets of questions in chronological order for differentiation. Answer keys are included for all three sets.
- 40 question set requiring full sentence answers.
- 30 question set requiring full sentence answers (10 removed from the larger set).
- 30 multiple choice question set with three answer options. The multiple choice set works well with ESL and ELL students.
This part covers three activities.
- A nine scene storyboard covering what they consider the most important parts of the movie, with a brief written description for each scene.
- A synopsis of the movie, written using that storyboard as a guide.
- Designing and drawing their own sea beast, with a written description.
A word search puzzle for early finishers with 15 words to find, five of which require students to answer a clue first before they can locate the word. An answer key is included.
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 Stowaway Chases a Legend and Finds the Truth Instead. Maisie sneaks aboard a monster hunting ship hoping to prove herself against the beasts from her storybooks, only to discover the creatures are nothing like she was told. Her journey from believer to questioner gives students a clear example of a character changing her mind when the evidence in front of her contradicts what she was raised to believe.
🏛️ A Kingdom's Official Story Turns Out to Be False. The hunters' entire mission rests on generations of stories the Crown has told about dangerous sea monsters, and the movie slowly reveals how much of that story was built to serve the people in power. It gives students a real example of propaganda in action and a reason to ask who benefits when a government controls the narrative.
🤝 Trust Builds Slowly Between Two Reluctant Allies. Jacob starts the movie certain of everything he was trained to believe, and Maisie has to earn his trust one small moment at a time before he is willing to reconsider it. Watching two characters with opposing views work toward understanding each other gives students something to talk about beyond the movie's action.
🦑 Sea Beasts Are Reframed Through a Character's Eyes. Once Maisie spends real time with a sea beast rather than fighting one, the movie asks students to reconsider a creature they were introduced to as a monster. The shift mirrors how easy it is to misjudge something based on reputation alone rather than direct experience.
🎖️ Courage Means Standing Up to People in Charge. By the end of the movie, both Maisie and Jacob have to challenge a king, a queen, and a captain they respect in order to do what they believe is right. Their choice to speak up despite the risk gives students a clear model of courage and integrity in action.
🌊 An Adventure Built Around Real Stakes. The hunters face genuine danger throughout the movie, from violent confrontations with the beasts to a contest that could end their entire way of life. The high stakes keep the plot moving while still leaving room for the story's questions about truth and trust to land.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated PG.
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- The movie includes several intense battles between hunters and sea monsters, with weapons such as spears, cannons, and poison, and one sailor is shown with visible injuries afterward.
- There is mild language throughout, including uses of "bloody hell" and "ass."
- Adult characters are shown drinking alcohol on more than one occasion, including in a tavern scene.
- Several scenes involving rough seas, near drownings, and a large sea creature could be frightening for younger viewers.
📋 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 social studies and SEL connections here come through the movie's plot and discussion potential. The guide's own activities are built around comprehension, writing, and creativity rather than dedicated social studies or SEL tasks.
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.
