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Reading schedule · Grades 6–9

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in 5 Weeks: A Reading Schedule

A five-week plan for reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, one section a week. Each week gives the reading, a short summary of what happens, three discussion questions and the escape room that goes with it. For grades 6–9, in class or at home.

Pacing

Logic-stage readers (grades 6–9) can usually manage a section a week on their own, reading a few chapters most days. Use the questions to move from what happened to why it happened: motives, causes and consequences. A long section can take two weeks without spoiling the plan.

Each week ends with an escape room on that week's reading: seven self-checking locks that run in any browser, with no logins, and progress is saved, so a room can be finished another day. Every room has free taster locks to try, and members can open them all.

Print this schedule Escape rooms on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Week 1: Part 1, Chapters 1–12

Read: Part 1, Chapters 1–12

Reports of a sea monster send the frigate Abraham Lincoln to hunt it, with Professor Aronnax aboard. After the chase and a fall overboard, the castaways discover that the monster is a machine and spend their first days aboard the Nautilus with its mysterious captain.

Discussion questions

1. Why does Aronnax first think the monster is an animal?
2. What kind of man does the captain seem at first?
3. Why are the castaways not free to leave?

Escape room: The Steel Monster (lockedlessons.com/rooms/twenty-thousand-leagues-part-1-chapters-1-12/)

Week 2: Part 1, Chapters 13–24

Read: Part 1, Chapters 13–24

Aronnax and his companions walk in diving suits through an undersea forest at Crespo Island and cross the Pacific. They see the wrecks at Vanikoro, are stranded in the Torres Strait, spend days ashore on New Guinea until the islanders attack, and attend a burial on the sea floor.

Discussion questions

1. Which wonders impress Aronnax most?
2. How does the captain deal with the islanders?
3. What does the burial suggest about the captain and his crew?

Escape room: Forests of the Deep (lockedlessons.com/rooms/twenty-thousand-leagues-part-1-chapters-13-24/)

Week 3: Part 2, Chapters 1–8

Read: Part 2, Chapters 1–8

The Nautilus crosses the Indian Ocean and visits the pearl fishery off Ceylon, where a shark appears. It passes up the Red Sea and through a secret tunnel, sees the Greek islands, dashes across the Mediterranean and visits the treasure ships of Vigo Bay.

Discussion questions

1. What happens at the pearl fishery, and what does it show about the captain?
2. Why might the captain want the treasure of Vigo Bay?
3. Why does the Nautilus hurry across the Mediterranean?

Escape room: Pearls and Gold (lockedlessons.com/rooms/twenty-thousand-leagues-part-2-chapters-1-8/)

Week 4: Part 2, Chapters 9–16

Read: Part 2, Chapters 9–16

The captain takes Aronnax on a night walk to Atlantis, and the Nautilus finds coal in a volcano. It crosses the Sargasso Sea, a battle with whales follows, and the voyage through the ice to the South Pole ends in a struggle for air beneath the ice.

Discussion questions

1. How does the battle of the whales show the captain's values?
2. How do they escape the ice?
3. Is the captain a hero or a villain?

Escape room: Fire and Ice (lockedlessons.com/rooms/twenty-thousand-leagues-part-2-chapters-9-16/)

Week 5: Part 2, Chapters 17–23

Read: Part 2, Chapters 17–23

Off the coast of South America giant sea monsters attack, and the Nautilus meets the Gulf Stream and a storm. The captain visits the wreck of an old French warship and sinks an enemy ship, and the companions escape in the dinghy and wake in Norway.

Discussion questions

1. Why does the captain sink the enemy ship?
2. Why do the companions choose this moment to escape?
3. What do you think becomes of the captain?

Escape room: Into the Maelstrom (lockedlessons.com/rooms/twenty-thousand-leagues-part-2-chapters-17-23/)

Nothing in this schedule is quoted from any translation, so it can sit beside whichever one your class reads.