“The Pied Piper of Hamelin”

Directions: Answer the following questions based on the reading selection.

1. What was unusual about the Piper’s appearance? What words would you use to describe him?

2. How did the Piper persuade the Mayor to allow him to get rid of the rats? What evidence did the Piper use to support his argument?

3. Why did the rats jump into the river?

4. How did the solution to the original problem create new problems? How might the new problems have been avoided? What warning did the Piper provide that his power extended to more than just rats?

5. What did the Piper mean by the words, “And folks who put me in a passion/ May find me pipe after another fashion”?

6. Why do you think the Piper chose music to charm the rats and the children?

7. Why do you think no one was able to stop the children? Did the children see the event as something positive or negative? How did the Mayor and Council perceive the event? Ho do you think the other townspeople felt?

8. What title might you give the Piper’s song? Why? Does your title express the point of view of the Piper, the children, or the adults in the town? What titles might be given to the song by each of the points of view?

9. What is the lesson of the poem?

10. Was a thousand guilders a lot of money? Support your response with evidence from the poem.

11. What evidence in the poem supports the idea that the Mayor and Council did not make wise use of the town’s funds?

12. What assumptions did the Mayor make about the Piper?

13. What was the Piper’s point of view about how he was treated? Were his actions justified? Why or why not?

14. How did the society of Hamelin change after the events described in the poem? What efforts did the people of the town make to ensure that the events were remembered?

15. How can music create changes in the ways people feel and act? Are these changes always positive? What are some examples of ways in which music may have affected events in history?