creative writing lord of the flies

10 Activities for Teaching Lord of the Flies

Teaching Lord of the Flies can be a fun and exciting class novel. There are deep themes on innocence, building civilizations, and the dangers of mob mentality. If you’re needing some ideas to refresh your lesson plans, read on.

Here are 10 Activities for Teaching Lord of the Flies

1. lord of the flies self-grading quizzes.

Self-grading quizzes via Google Forms are seriously a game-changer. Setting it up is a great way to quickly assess if students are keeping up with the reading or to assess comprehension. Students can immediately see their grades and you can collect real-time data. My digital chapter quizzes for Lord of the Flies includes a quiz for each chapter, the option to print, and the ability to adjust the point value to fit your class structure.

2. Lord of the Flies Mask Project

Students who are more artistically inclined can make literal masks with various materials, or you can simply provide drawing options. My Mask Project resource includes an introduction to the activity, an assignment with templates and a symbol tracker, a writing prompt, and a rubric.

3. Lord of the Flies Map Project

An ongoing project you can try is creating a map of the island the boys are stranded on. Students will have to look for specific text details to create their map. It’s a great assignment after those first few chapters. This is another artistic-type assignment that be adjusted depending on student interest. My Map Project is a great option if you need something ready-made, and it includes two different assignment handouts, a rubric, and sample quotations to guide the activity.

4. Lord of the Flies Escape Rooms

Escape rooms are so great because you can pack a lot of skills and analysis options into one assignment. Your escape room can be done as a review or re-cap of a section of reading, or you can use it as an ongoing assignment you complete as you read. This is also an assignment that can easily be tiered to student ability and can be an individual assignment or a group activity.

I have two Escape Room challenges I like to use in class. This mid-novel review covers the first 6 chapters and has students sort more than 40 timeline events from the novel. This escape room challenge covers 6 tasks to review content from Lord of the Flies like close reading, characterization, and symbolism.

5. Lord of the Flies Bell Ringers

These are tried and true, but they don’t have to be boring. Try visual journal prompts with an aesthetically pleasing background to get creative juices flowing. Set up a lightning round share where students select one sentence to share with the class. A quick writing prompt is an ideal way to begin class and start getting minds engaged for the lesson. This resource includes 30 common core aligned bell ringers that ask students to write a quick argument, informational or narrative pieces based on the quotes given.

6. Digital Interactive Notebook

If you’re looking for something eco-conscious to a foldable or interactive notebook, try a digital one instead. The possibilities are endless and many interactive notebook activities can easily be implemented digitally. You can find an editable Digital Interactive Notebook here that will seamlessly fit into your classroom. With the ease of Google Slides, you can easily copy and paste to create your own student notebook.

7. Interactive Bookmark

The bonus is this Lord of the Flies bookmark is small enough to fit in the book your students are reading. The Interactive Bookmark you see here includes four bookmarks to use throughout the novel and contains vocabulary, detailed reading comprehension questions, quotes, a timeline, and symbols. It is an entire Lord of the Flies teaching unit in one!

8. Sticky Note Analysis

I love sticky notes. They just add a little something extra. Plus it helps students practice being concise with answers (since they only have the space of a sticky note to answer) and also gives the illusion that they just need to write “a little bit” to fill the sticky note. It’s a great way to keep students engaged. I created an entire literary analysis packet that can be used anywhere in the novel. It includes 13 organizers, including 6 that have built-in writing prompts. Students will cover figurative language, characterization and development, conflict, symbols, tone and more.

9. Character Analysis Graphic Organizers

Focus your graphic organizer game by having students look just at character development. These graphic organizers will help students identify key elements of characterization including textual evidence. You can also have students trace character emotions and motivation throughout the novel. Having a graphic organizer in place means students can keep track of information for all the characters and have an easy place to refer back to key information as they continue through the novel and eventually work on analysis writing prompts.

10. Essays and Research

Essays and research projects are still a staple in my classroom. Take a look at this argument essay that you can use to end the novel. It combines Lord of the Flies with a nonfiction article (included in my resource) as well as all the steps of the writing process for your students to write an amazing argumentative essay.

There are two different rubrics, peer editing forms, outlines, and a collaborative brainstorming poster activity. You can also check out this group project which is better suited for the beginning of the novel as an introduction. It helps students become more familiar with the historical context and parallels of the novel. You’ll find the assignment, topics, websites for students to visit, group evaluation forms, teacher rubrics, and example PowerPoint templates.

If you’d like more resources, or can’t decide on which ones you like the best – why not try them all? My unit bundle for Lord of the Flies includes these ideas plus a number of other resources that you can have for a great deal. Find the unit bundle here .

Want more ideas for teaching Lord of the Flies?

• Modern Novels to Pair with Classics: Lord of the Flies
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What have been your favorite activities to keep students engaged with Lord of the Flies? If you have innovative ideas you’d like to share, I’m always looking to add to my own toolbox of tricks and activities. Don’t forget you can find me on Instagram for more great ideas.

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'Lord of the Flies' Themes, Symbols, and Literary Devices

• B.A., English, Rutgers University

Lord of the Flies , William Golding's tale of British schoolboys stranded on a deserted island, is nightmarish and brutal. Through its exploration of themes including good versus evil, illusion versus reality, and chaos versus order, Lord of the Flies raises powerful questions about the nature of humankind.

Good vs. Evil

The central theme of Lord of the Flies is human nature: are we naturally good, naturally evil, or something else entirely? This question runs through the entire novel from beginning to end.

When the boys gather on the beach for the first time, summoned by the sound of the conch, they have not yet internalized the fact that they are now outside the normal bounds of civilization. Notably, one boy, Roger, remembers throwing stones at younger boys but deliberately missing his targets for fear of retribution by adults. The boys decide to set up a democratic society in order to maintain order. They elect Ralph as their leader and create a crude mechanism for discussion and debate, designating that anyone who holds the conch has the right to be heard. They build shelters and show concern for the youngest among them. They also play make believe and other games, exulting in their freedom from chores and rules.

Golding seems to suggest that the democratic society they create is simply another game. The rules are only as effective as their enthusiasm for the game itself. It is notable that at the beginning of the novel, all the boys assume rescue is imminent, and thus that the rules they're accustomed to following will soon be reimposed. As they come to believe that they will not be returned to civilization anytime soon, the boys abandon their game of democratic society, and their behavior becomes increasingly fearful, savage, superstitious, and violent.

Golding’s question is perhaps not whether humans are inherently good or evil, but rather whether these concepts have any true meaning. While it is tempting to see Ralph and Piggy as ‛good’ and Jack and his hunters as ‛evil,’ the truth is more complex. Without Jack’s hunters, the boys would have suffered hunger and deprivation. Ralph, the believer in rules, lacks authority and the ability to enforce his rules, leading to disaster. Jack’s rage and violence leads to the destruction of the world. Piggy’s knowledge and book learning are proven as to be meaningless as his technology, represented by the fire-starting glasses, when they fall into the hands of boys who do not understand them.

All of these issues are mirrored subtly by the war that frames the story. Although only vaguely described, it is clear that the adults outside the island are engaged in a conflict, inviting comparisons and forcing us to consider whether the difference is merely a matter of scale.

Illusion vs. Reality

The nature of reality is explored in several ways in the novel. On the one hand, appearances seem to doom the boys to certain roles—most notably Piggy. Piggy initially expresses the dim hope that he can escape the abuse and bullying of his past through his alliance with Ralph and his usefulness as a well-read child. However, he quickly falls back into the role of the bullied ‛nerd’ and becomes reliant on Ralph’s protection.

On the other hand, many aspects of the island are not clearly perceived by the boys. Their belief in The Beast stems from their own imaginations and fears, but it quickly takes on what seems to the boys to be a physical form. In this way, The Beast becomes very real to the boys. As the belief in The Beast grows, Jack and his hunters descend into savagery. They paint their faces, changing their appearance in order to project a fearsome and frightening visage that belies their true childish nature.

More subtly, what seemed real in the beginning of the book—Ralph’s authority, the power of the conch, the assumption of rescue—slowly erodes over the course of the story, revealed to be nothing more than the rules of an imaginary game. In the end, Ralph is alone, there is no tribe, the conch is destroyed (and Piggy murdered) in the ultimate refutation of its power, and the boys abandon the signal fires, making no effort to prepare for or attract rescue.

At the terrifying climax, Ralph is hunted through the island as everything burns—and then, in a final twist of reality, this descent into horror is revealed to be unreal. Upon discovering they have in fact been rescued, the surviving boys immediately collapse and burst into tears.

Order vs. Chaos

The civilized and reasonable behavior of the boys at the beginning of the novel is predicated on the expected return of an ultimate authority: adult rescuers. When the boys lose faith in the possibility of rescue, their orderly society collapses. In a similar way, the morality of the adult world is governed by a criminal justice system, armed forces, and spiritual codes. If these controlling factors were to be removed, the novel implies, society would quickly collapse into chaos.

Everything in the story is reduced to its power or lack thereof. Piggy’s glasses can start fires, and thus are coveted and fought over. The conch, which symbolizes order and rules, can challenge raw physical power, and so it is destroyed. Jack’s hunters can feed hungry mouths, and thus they have an outsize influence over the other boys, who quickly do as they are told despite their misgivings. Only the return of adults at the end of the novel changes this equation, bringing a more powerful force to the island and instantly reimposing the old rules.

On a superficial level, the novel tells a story of survival in a realistic style. The process of building shelters, gathering food, and seeking rescue are recorded with a high level of detail. However, Golding develops several symbols throughout the story that slowly take on increasing weight and power in the story.

The Conch comes to represent reason and order. In the beginning of the novel, it has the power to quiet the boys and force them to listen to wisdom. As more boys defect to Jack’s chaotic, fascist tribe, the Conch's color fades. In the end, Piggy—the only boy who still has faith in the Conch—is killed trying to protect it.

The Pig’s Head

The Lord of the Flies, as described by a hallucinating Simon, is a pig’s head on a spike being consumed by flies. The Lord of the Flies is a symbol of the increasing savagery of the boys, on display for all to see.

Ralph, Jack, Piggy, and Simon

Each of the boys represent fundamental natures. Ralph represents order. Piggy represents knowledge. Jack represents violence. Simon represents good, and is in fact the only truly selfless boy on the island, which makes his death at the hands of Ralph and the other supposedly civilized boys shocking.

Piggy’s Glasses

Piggy’s glasses are designed to provide clear vision, but they are transformed into a tool to make fire. The glasses serve as a symbol of control more powerful than the Conch. The Conch is purely symbolic, representing rules and order, while the glasses convey true physical power.

The beast represents the unconscious, ignorant terror of the boys. As Simon thinks, "The beast is the boys." It did not exist on the island before their arrival.

Literary Device: Allegory

Lord of the Flies is written in a straightforward style. Golding eschews complex literary devices and simply tells the story in chronological order. However, the entire novel serves as a complex allegory, in which every major character represents some larger aspect of society and the world. Thus, their behavior is in many ways predetermined. Ralph represents society and order, and so he consistently attempts to organize and hold the boys to standards of behavior. Jack represents savagery and primitive fear, and so he consistently devolves to a primitive state.

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William Golding’s Lord of the Flies

William Golding, 1983.

Wikimedia Commons

"The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable." —William Golding

Well over half a century since its first publication in 1954, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies wields the power to rivet readers’ attention and to pose questions about human nature, civilization, and evil. War is raging in the outside world and it does not take long for the group of children stranded on what should be a tropical paradise to also erupt into violence. This is a novel that engages students in thought-provoking discussion, as well as one that provides the opportunity for students to practice literary analysis skills.

The three lessons in this unit all stress textual evidence to support observations and generalizations. The assumption is that students have completed reading the novel before beginning the unit. Lesson 1 focuses on the four major characters (Ralph, Jack, Piggy, and Simon) and on ways William Golding used both direct and indirect characterization to portray them. Lesson 2 deals with major symbols: the island itself; the conch; the pig’s head on a stick; fire. Students also consider ways the boys themselves can be considered as symbolic personality types. Lesson 3 grapples with Golding’s themes related to human nature, roles of law and authority, and the apparent inevitability of war.

The Internet provides many websites dealing with the novel. While these can be helpful for study and review, they tend to be reductive and can interfere with the reader’s independent comprehension and analysis. Encourage students to do their own reading and thinking and to avoid using these sources as shortcuts to understanding the novel.

Guiding Questions

What does Lord of the Flies say about the importance of a system of law and order for maintaining civilization?

What causes individuals and groups to wage war against each other?

Curriculum Details

Anchor standard.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Individual Grade Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.1: Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies , first published in 1954, takes the timeless story of castaways on a deserted island and turns it on its head. In this case, the island is nearly idyllic. The castaways are preadolescent boys from an English preparatory school where some were talented members of the choir. In Golding’s scenario, these characters gradually deteriorate to savagery and nearly end in self-destruction.

The novel is so well known that even those who have never delved into the text can usually describe the basic story line. It is eminently teachable and is found in curriculums from grades 6 through 12 due to its clear-cut characters, precise symbols, and gradually evolving themes. The novel has been rendered in a number of movie adaptations, including the black-and-white version from 1963; the color motion picture from 1990; and a 2013 low-budget film created by college students. It has also been made into a stage play.

What led Golding to write this remarkable and long-lasting work? He once explained that, after reading a children’s adventure novel entitled The Coral Island to his son, he realized that its optimistic scenario was highly unlikely. In addition, from 1940 until after World War II, he was in the Royal Navy, an experience about which he later said, “Anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head.” Lord of the Flies certainly conveys that view.

In 1983, Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for “his novels which, with the perspicacity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today.” At the time, he was near the end of a long career of which the most long-lasting accomplishment was his first published novel, Lord of the Flies . Many critics were highly skeptical and bitterly critical of the Nobel committee’s choice, claiming the greater merit of other writers, some of whom actually later received the prize. According to apocryphal legend, one critic went so far as to describe Lord of the Flies disparagingly as a “paint-by-numbers” book, insufficiently complex for Nobel attention.

Nevertheless, what we have in this novel works splendidly in the classroom and can facilitate students’ work with close reading and with analysis of characters, symbols, and themes. One initial drawback can be the fact that no female characters are included, but most readers quickly transcend that fact to recognize that the events are not gender-specific and enter into conjecture about ways outcomes might have been different if the castaways had been from a coed or an all-girls school.

This unit refers to one of several published editions of the novel: William Golding, Lord of the Flies (New York: Perigee, 1954).

Detailed information about Golding’s life is available through Biography.com.

Write an essay focusing on the role of one character or one symbol in events on the island. Relate that character or symbol to the novel’s central themes. Provide textual support in the essay, including carefully chosen quotations. ( Worksheet 7 provides a useful rubric for student writing and revision and for teacher evaluation.)

Alternative Creative Writing Assessments

If you feel that classroom discussion and earlier assessments have thoroughly covered this topic, you may want to substitute one of the following writing assessments that involve synthesis of material covered in the unit:

• Write a short story in the style of Lord of the Flies. After completion, share the finished story with a partner and write an analysis of it by commenting on symbolism, characterization, and theme inclusion.
• Project ten or twelve years into the future after the novel’s conclusion. Write an essay or a short story where one of the characters reflects on his long-ago experiences on the island. Include references to the text.
• Write an essay discussing the how novel’s portrait of human nature relates to the world today. Include references to the text, and cite sources of information about local, national, and international current events.
• Imagine that the castaways include girls or consist entirely of girls. Write an essay or a story in which you show how that change would affect the story as a whole.
• View one of the film adaptations of Lord of the Flies and prepare a presentation in which you discuss and assess significant ways the film alters the novel.
• Create a graphic version of one section of the novel. Include artwork and passages from the text.
• Using the play version of the novel or one you have created, assemble a cast and prepare a performance, either live or recorded.
• Connect the characters, symbols and/or themes of Lord of the Flies to a novel students have read/studied earlier in the year. 

Lesson Plans in Curriculum

Lesson 1: characterization in lord of the flies.

This lesson focuses on character analysis throughout William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies . While contemplating both direct and indirect characterization techniques, students will be able to consider how characterization builds relationships among the boys in the novel.

Lesson 2: Symbolism in Lord of the Flies

Lesson 2 is a study of symbols in William Golding’s novel "Lord of the Flies." After reviewing the general concept of symbolism, students focus on four of the most dominant symbols that permeate the novel: the island itself; the conch; the Lord of the Flies effigy; fire.

Lesson 3: Themes in Lord of the Flies

Lesson 3 involves distinguishing between a literary topic and a literary theme. It articulates a variety of William Golding’s themes implicit in the novel Lord of the Flies" and has students recognize the dominant theme of human nature’s propensity for destruction.

Materials & Media

Lord of the flies summative assessment, related on edsitement, a literary glossary for literature and language arts, fiction and nonfiction for ap english literature and composition, examining utopia & dystopia in the giver.

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Lord of the Flies

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Lord of the Flies , novel by William Golding , published in 1954. The book explores the dark side of human nature and stresses the importance of reason and intelligence as tools for dealing with the chaos of existence.

In the novel, children are evacuated from Britain because of a nuclear war. One airplane, with adults and prep-school boys as passengers, crashes on an uninhabited island, and all the adults are killed. As the boys fashion their own society, their attempts at establishing a social order gradually devolve into savagery. Finally abandoning all moral constraints, the boys commit murder before they are rescued and returned to civilization.

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Lord of the Flies

William golding.

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on William Golding's Lord of the Flies . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Lord of the Flies: Introduction

Lord of the flies: plot summary, lord of the flies: detailed summary & analysis, lord of the flies: themes, lord of the flies: quotes, lord of the flies: characters, lord of the flies: symbols, lord of the flies: literary devices, lord of the flies: theme wheel, brief biography of william golding.

Historical Context of Lord of the Flies

Other books related to lord of the flies.

• Full Title: Lord of the Flies
• Where Written: England
• When Published: 1954
• Literary Period: Post-war fiction
• Genre: Allegorical novel / Adventure novel
• Setting: A deserted tropical island in the middle of a nuclear world war
• Climax: Piggy's death
• Point of View: Third person omniscient

Extra Credit for Lord of the Flies

Beelzebub. The phrase "lord of the flies" is a translation of the Greek "Beelzebub," a devil mentioned in the New Testament. In the Bible, Beelzebub sometimes seems to be Satan himself, and at other times seems to be Satan's most powerful lieutenant.

Coral Island. William Golding based several of the main ideas in Lord of the Flies on Coral Island (1858), a somewhat obscure novel by Robert Ballantyne, a 19th-century British novelist. In Coral Island , three English boys create an idyllic society after being shipwrecked on a deserted island. They battle wild hogs, typhoons, hostile island visitors, and eventually Pirates on the South Seas.

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Lord of the Flies

William Golding's dystopian novel continues to engage GCSE English Literature students with its shocking themes of savagery and conflict.

Explore key themes, characters and the novel's setting with a range of classroom resources, including activity packs, chapter summaries, essay frames and recall quizzes. 

If you are looking for a comprehensive teaching plan and resources, try our popular  Lord of the Flies  teaching pack , or start year 9s off with the themes of the novel with The Island - a cultural capital project . 

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Creative Writing - Lord of the Flies

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

22 February 2018

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