What If Scenarios

Overview

Lesson 3 of 30 in Exploring Speculative Perspectives. Students explore how “What if?” questions can generate imaginative, plausible scenarios and use different perspectives to plan a first-person journal entry.

Learning intentions

Students will:

• Understand how speculative questions create alternative situations.
• Develop scenarios that include a clear setting, conflict or change, and consequences.
• Explore how the same event may be understood differently by different people.
• Plan ideas for a first-person journal entry using appropriate detail and voice.

Success criteria

• I can create an engaging “What if?” question.
• I can explain the setting, change, conflict and possible consequences of my scenario.
• I can describe how a character might think, feel and respond.
• I can select a perspective and record a focused journal-entry plan.

Curriculum links

• Creating imaginative and speculative texts for particular purposes and audiences.
• Developing and using ideas, events and characters to engage readers.
• Experimenting with voice, language choices and literary techniques.
• Planning, drafting and revising texts, including using feedback to improve clarity and effect.
• Discussing how perspectives influence the representation of events and experiences.

Lesson structure (70 minutes)

1. 0–8 minutes – Hook: impossible choices

Open with the opening “What if?” question: “What if everyone in your town woke up with one memory missing?” Students silently write one immediate reaction, then share with a partner. Invite two or three responses and briefly identify what makes the question interesting: uncertainty, consequences or emotional stakes.

2. 8–18 minutes – Teach the concept

Use the speculative fiction teaching slides to define a speculative scenario as an imagined situation that asks readers to consider possibilities beyond everyday reality. Model the difference between a broad idea (“What if robots existed?”) and a focused scenario (“What if a home robot secretly recorded every family argument?”). Highlight the importance of cause, consequence and perspective.

3. 18–30 minutes – Scenario generator

Display the scenario-building framework in the scenario generator. As a class, combine one element from each category: a change to the world, a setting, a person affected and a complication. For example: “What if gravity stopped working for ten minutes during a school assembly?” Students work in pairs to create two possible scenarios and explain which one has greater potential for a journal entry.

4. 30–43 minutes – Perspective exploration

Give each pair a role card from the Perspective and Empathy Role Cards. Students revisit one scenario from the role’s viewpoint and discuss: What would this person notice first? What might they fear or hope? What decision might they make? Groups briefly share how changing the role changes the meaning of the event. Reinforce that perspective is shown through thoughts, feelings, observations and language choices.

5. 43–58 minutes – Individual planning

Distribute the What If? journal-entry planning worksheet. Students choose or adapt a scenario and complete the planning sections: the “What if?” question, setting, narrator, change or problem, immediate reaction, consequences and three sensory details. They then draft a possible opening sentence in first person. Confer with students, prompting them to make ideas specific rather than merely unusual.

6. 58–66 minutes – Peer response

Students read their plan to a partner. The listener gives one precise strength and asks one question beginning, “What might happen if…?” Students use the question to add or refine one consequence on the worksheet. Remind students that useful feedback helps develop the idea rather than replacing the writer’s decision.

7. 66–70 minutes – Plenary and exit response

Return to the plenary prompts. Students complete the sentence: “My scenario is compelling because…” and “My narrator’s perspective matters because…”. Collect worksheets or photograph plans for use in the next lesson, where students will develop voice and begin drafting.

Resources

• the What If? introduction and teaching deck
• the What If? journal-entry planning worksheet
• the Perspective and Empathy Role Cards
• Whiteboard and markers
• Pens or pencils
• Timer
• Student writing books or devices, if available

Assessment

• Listen to pair discussions for understanding of speculation, consequence and perspective.
• Check worksheets for a focused scenario, a clearly identified narrator, logical consequences and relevant sensory details.
• Use the plenary responses to identify students who need further support distinguishing an event from a perspective on that event.

Differentiation

• Provide students who need support with a choice of three teacher-modelled “What if?” questions and sentence starters such as “I noticed…”, “I was afraid that…” and “No one else understood…”.
• Allow EAL students to rehearse orally with a partner before writing and to use a personal vocabulary bank for emotions, settings and actions.
• For students requiring additional processing or writing support, scribe ideas, provide a partially completed planning grid, or allow speech-to-text.
• Extend confident writers by asking them to develop conflicting perspectives on the same event or introduce an unreliable narrator whose interpretation may be questioned.