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 do you know about racial segregation in the 1950s?

Teaching Suggestion: To understand the subtle hints Gaines uses to build James’s world, an ability to see the signs of segregation is important. Students likely know about segregation, but the atmosphere of fear segregation created within the black community in the south is harder to imagine, and is woven deeply into this story.

• "Jim Crow Laws and Racial Segregation in America" – a GPB Education mini documentary that explains the genesis and impact of racial segregation in America
• "Housing Segregation and Redlining in America" – NPR’s exposé on the housing segregation that still impacts black Americans today. *Note: The video starts with a Chris Rock joke in which he uses an expletive. Skip over the first minute if this joke is too controversial for the classroom.

2. What do you know about the psychological effects of poverty?

Teaching Suggestion: This question is important to the story because it is not simply that James and his mother live in a segregated environment—they also live in poverty.