Cat in the Rain: Ernest Hemingway

This 20-slide lesson uses Ernest Hemingway’s classic short story, ‘Cat in the Rain’, to teach students about the ‘Iceberg Theory’ and analytical inference.

Using Hemingway’s story as the model, students are encouraged to think about how the story functions on a symbolic level in spite of its apparent simplicity and minimalism. Marking the difference between comprehension/fact and inference, students use the story to think about ‘reading between the lines’ in this text and in so many others. Using the cat as a symbol, Hemingway’s story is deliciously ambiguous, and students are prompted to think not only about how writers hide details beneath the surface (like an iceberg), but also how they too can create powerful meanings and effects in their own creative writing.

This lesson works well for KS3 and GCSE students.

Questions, discussion points, and tasks are included for students. A copy of Hemingway’s story is also included in this resource.

PowerPoint saved as PDF.