Scapegoats in Fiction and Reality

Common Core Standards

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.9

There is no scientific evidence that aliens have visited earth, but have events like on Maple Street ever occurred?

At the end of the epilogue, the narrator states:

“For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children...and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is... that these things cannot be confined to...the Twilight Zone.”

The makers of the Simpsons also addressed the issue of scapegoats. View this short clip. Who are the scapegoats? Why are they being targeted?

The Simpsons episode is inspired from the true Salem Witch Trials that occurred in what is now the United States in the year 1692. Go to Edpuzzle and view "The Story of the Salem Witch Trials." Answer the questions as you go. 
Now open the document, Scapegoating: Fiction and Reality, in your Google classroom folder. Complete the chart as you compare the science fiction story with the actual historical events.

The Salem Witch Trials