The Screaming Staircase

The team dynamic of Lockwood & Co. changes dramatically from the novel’s beginning to its conclusion. How does the group learn and demonstrate The Importance of Planning and Preparation, develop an ability to Navigate the Complex Friendship amongst themselves, and ultimately Make a Name for Lockwood & Co.?

Some guiding questions to help you formulate your response are:

• How does the team operate in the novel’s exposition?
• What conflicts arise and why? 
• How do Lockwood, Lucy, and George learn to manage their conflicts and become a successful team?
• Why is the team unsuccessful at the Hope house but successful in the much more challenging Fairfax mission?

Teaching Suggestion: Students should not feel limited by the guiding questions, but these could instead be used as “jumping off points” from which to delve into their own ideas and thoughts and to provide a sense of organization and focus to the complexity of the question. The question ties together all of the novel’s themes as well as the character arcs that bring these themes to life.

Differentiation Suggestion: Students with dyslexia or other executive or processing differences may find it challenging to bring together the novel’s themes in the form of a paragraph response. These students can be given an alternative approach by allowing them to discuss their thoughts as a group, present their responses orally, and/or receive a graphic organizer with the novel’s main events outlined.