Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What was Jesmyn Ward’s likely vision for The Fire This Time? Speculate about Ward’s purpose in facilitating this book. What messages did she likely hope it would communicate to contemporary America?

Teaching Suggestion: It may be helpful to provide students with a brief overview of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time in order to provide students with enough context to understand Ward’s model and inspiration. After investigating Ward’s purpose and intentions with the book based on this interview or a similar resource, students might discuss how Ward conveyed this intention to the writers who contributed to the anthology.

• “‘The Fire This Time’: A New Generation of Writers on Race in America” - This resource comes from an interview between Jesmyn Ward and Audie Cornish on NPR’s All Things Considered after Ward published The Fire This Time in 2016. The text contains highlights from the interview; the full interview is included and is 8 minutes long.

2. One of the book’s main themes is Grief: A Private Pain, A Public Protest.