Five-Week Plan
A five-week sequence from context and genre to a tested argument about Jurassic Park.
Open resource →
Year 9 HEAP • English
Novel: Jurassic Park
A five-week novel study of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. Students examine how the novel builds a convincing scientific world, distributes responsibility across characters and systems, and turns a disaster into an argument about control. The packet is generic, public and free of school-specific material.
What this packet is. It contains 16 public resources, including this overview. Students move from context and genre to structure, worldbuilding, character, theme, narrative voice, close reading, adaptation, argument and creative or oral response. The novel and film are in copyright: the packet reproduces no novel text, stills, scripts, dialogue or logos, and students use short quotations from their own copies. Success criteria are formative and labelled as such.
Unit outcomes
- Explain the novel's central thought experiment and connect it to its context and genre.
- Analyse how worldbuilding, character and narrative perspective shape the reader's understanding of the park.
- Trace a theme or motif across the novel and support a claim with short, contextualised evidence.
- Explain what the 1993 film adaptation changes and why those changes matter.
- Build a contestable argument with distinct reasons, evidence, a warrant and a response to the strongest objection.
- Create or present an original response that illuminates the novel without reproducing its text.
The five-week shape
| Week | Focus |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | Context and design. Place the novel in its scientific and commercial moment; map its genres; trace the plot as causes and consequences; analyse how the park is made to feel plausible. |
| Week 2 | Character and meaning. Map power and responsibility; trace themes and motifs; examine third-person limited narration; build a quotation log and a close-reading paragraph. |
| Week 3 | Argument and adaptation. Build a claim with reasons and warrants; compare the novel with the film; plan an essay; prepare a seminar position. |
| Week 4 | Draft and create. Draft and redraft an analytical response; write a missing scene, system log or monologue; give and use specific feedback. |
| Week 5 | Present and transfer. Present a seminar claim and question; reflect on the novel's ethical questions; analyse an unfamiliar passage; consolidate the quotation log and argument plan. |
Public resources
Outcomes and Skills
Formative outcomes and success criteria for analysing Jurassic Park and building an argument.
Open resource →Context and Composition
Crichton, the science of the late 1980s, and the commercial logic behind the park.
Open resource →Genre and Premise
Science fiction, thriller, disaster novel and cautionary tale, and how the conventions work together.
Open resource →Plot and Structure
The tour, the system failure and the survival sequence, mapped as causes and consequences.
Open resource →Worldbuilding and Science
How the novel makes an impossible park feel plausible, and what that plausibility costs.
Open resource →Characters and Power
Hammond, Grant, Malcolm, Sattler, Nedry and the systems they represent.
Open resource →Themes and Motifs
Control, chaos, commodification, parenthood and the gaze, traced across the novel.
Open resource →Narrative Voice and Perspective
Third-person limited narration, multiple viewpoints and the scientific interludes.
Open resource →Close Reading and Evidence
From a short quotation to a claim about the whole novel, with a quotation log and paragraph frame.
Open resource →Adaptation and Film
What changes when a novel becomes a blockbuster, and what those changes reveal about both media.
Open resource →Argument and Essay
Build a contestable claim, support it with evidence, answer the strongest objection and plan a clear essay.
Open resource →Creative and Oral Response
Write a missing scene, system log or monologue, or present a seminar claim with evidence and a question.
Open resource →Teacher Notes
Pacing, differentiation, sensitive content, text access and practical setup for the five-week novel unit.
Open resource →Sources and Provenance
What this packet is built from, what is referenced rather than reproduced, and what it deliberately leaves out.
Open resource →Planning and support
Read the teacher notes for text access, pacing, differentiation, sensitive content and seminar setup. Differentiation is built into the teacher notes rather than published as a separate student page. The sources and provenance page records what is public, what is referenced rather than copied, and what the packet deliberately leaves out. Differentiation is built into the teacher notes rather than published as a separate student page. The sources and provenance page records what is public, what is linked rather than copied, and what the packet deliberately leaves out.
No assessment instrument. This packet does not publish confidential class briefs, scores, bands, weights, task numbers, due dates or test papers. It is a teaching and formative-feedback resource. Teachers keep their own school instruments offline.
Last reviewed: October 2026. Counts on this page match the public HTML pages in this folder.