The Maze Runner Activity Bundle - Creative Novel Activities and Assignments
Engage your students with these twelve ready-to-use creative activities and assignments designed to bring The Maze Runner by James Dashner to life. This activity bundle encourages students to make meaningful connections to the Gladers’ experiences while developing essential ELA skills. Students dive deeper into the novel through The Maze Runner activities relating to setting, character development, themes, symbolism, nonfiction connections, literary analysis, creative response projects, and a high-stakes Maze competition. The assignments are creative, engaging, and thoughtful while still addressing key ELA skills and standards.
This is included in a unit plan:
>>> The Maze Runner Unit Plan
Included in The Maze Runner Activity Bundle:
Chapters 1–8
➡️ Character Analysis Chart: Students track key characters throughout the novel by recording traits, relationships, important actions, conflicts, and evidence from the text as they read. This ongoing organizer helps students follow character development over time, keep track of the large cast of Gladers, and build a clearer understanding of each character’s role in the story and the group dynamics within the Glade.
➡️ Glade Dictionary Vocabulary Booklet: This novel uses a large amount of Glade-specific slang and unfamiliar terminology such as “Greenie,” “Shank,” “Slopper,” “Klunk,” “the Changing,” and “Griever.” As students encounter these terms throughout the novel, they create their own glossary by using context clues and text evidence to determine definitions and explain how each word is used by the Gladers. This ongoing booklet helps students better understand the language of the Glade.
➡️ Glade Map Setting Assignment: The Glade and Maze create a unique and detailed setting that can sometimes be difficult for students to fully visualize while reading. In this activity, students use text evidence from the novel to identify and map important locations such as the Homestead, the Box, the Deadheads, the Gardens, the Blood House, and the Maze Doors. As students gather details and add labels, symbols, and descriptions to their maps, they build a clearer understanding of how the setting functions and how different locations connect to important events in the story. A detailed visual answer key with supporting text evidence is also included.
Chapters 9–17
➡️ Glade Jobs Ceremony: In this immersive activity, students step into the role of newly arrived Greenies and are assigned a job within the Glade community, such as Runner, Builder, Med-Jack, Bagger, or Cook. A pre-written welcome speech helps set the tone and introduces students to the importance of each Glade job. As students learn about the expectations and risks connected to each role, they begin to understand how teamwork and structure keep the Glade functioning and its members alive. After receiving one of the 8 Glade job cards, students reflect on how their own strengths align with their assigned role. Students can then either write a journal response from the perspective of a Glader reacting to their assignment or complete a persuasive application requesting reassignment to a different job in the Glade.
➡️ Ben’s Journal Creative Writing Activity: After Ben attacks Thomas in Chapter 11, students step into Ben’s perspective to write a journal entry exploring his thoughts, fears, and motivations following the Changing. Because readers learn very little about Ben before this moment, students must rely on clues and evidence from the novel to make thoughtful inferences about his character and emotional state. As students write in Ben’s voice, they work to empathize with his experiences while analyzing how fear, confusion, and paranoia may have shaped his actions.
Chapters 18–28
➡️ Spend the Night in the Maze Simulation Game: Students step into the role of Gladers training to become Runners and experience the pressure of navigating the Maze firsthand. With the classroom lights dimmed and the slideshow guiding the experience, students complete a series of timed paper maze challenges that increase in difficulty as the activity progresses. As students race against the clock, some are eliminated during “Griever attacks” while others continue advancing through the Maze. After the simulation, students reflect on the emotions they experienced during the process and reflect on whether they would make a stronger Runner.
➡️ Greenie Survival Guide & Advice Video: Students imagine themselves as experienced Gladers and create a survival guide designed to help new Greenies navigate life in the Glade and survive the dangers of the Maze. Using details from the novel, students organize their guide into sections covering important rules, Glade jobs, Maze dangers, survival strategies, and essential advice for newcomers. Students then use their guide as the foundation for a short “Greenie Advice” video where they share their most important survival tips while practicing communication and presentation skills.
Chapters 29–37
➡️ Glade Apps Design Activity: Students create four original apps designed to help Thomas and the other Gladers survive life in the Glade and navigate the dangers of the Maze. Using the provided template, students develop app ideas aimed at solving specific problems from the novel while making connections to key conflicts and survival challenges in the story. For each app, students create a name, design an icon, and explain how the app would help the Gladers overcome obstacles or stay safe within the Maze.
Chapters 38–51
➡️ Intellectuals Assignment: This engaging nonfiction activity helps students explore the real historical figures connected to the Gladers’ names in The Maze Runner. After learning that many characters are named after famous thinkers in Chapter 49, students rotate through stations featuring short nonfiction biographies about figures such as Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Mother Teresa, and Winston Churchill. As students read, they record important information and work to match each intellectual to the correct character from the novel using evidence and reasoning from both texts.
Chapters 52–63 (Epilogue)
➡️ Final Essay Topics Assignment: Students choose from a set of thought-provoking essay prompts focused on major ideas from the novel, such as how survival requires both physical and mental strength, whether identity comes from memory or actions, the symbolism of the Maze, the importance of teamwork, the role of hope during difficult situations, and more. Students then write a five-paragraph essay using specific text evidence to support their thinking and develop a clear argument.
➡️ Movie vs. Novel Comparison Assignment: After reading The Maze Runner and watching the 2014 film adaptation The Maze Runner, students compare key differences in characters, plot events, setting details, and tone. Using specific examples from both versions, students analyze how changes made in the film adaptation affect the overall story, character development, and viewer experience.
➡️ Final Creative Response Choice Board: Conclude your unit with student-choice creative projects inspired by The Maze Runner. Options include writing a poetry collection, creating a novel soundtrack, designing a comic strip, writing diary entries, recording a podcast interview, creating a WICKED case file, or writing a prequel chapter exploring a character’s life before the Glade.
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