These prompts can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before or after reading the The Underground Railroad.

Pre-Reading “Icebreaker”

What does freedom mean to you? What risks and sacrifices would you endure to protect your own freedom?

Teaching Suggestion: Encourage students to think of this question through their own philosophies about how life should be lived. Cora is a resilient and courageous protagonist who hardens herself against the challenges of escape. Understanding Cora is understanding the value of freedom, but freedom is a vague word, and it is easy to take for granted the freedoms we have today. Defining what freedom is can help students better empathize with the heroes in the novel and discussions on the nature of freedom will emphasize the stock evil antagonists in Whitehead’s novel.

Post-Reading Analysis

It is not definitive that Cora killed Ridgeway, nor does the reader discover what ultimately happens to Cora. Examine Whitehead’s language and literary devices in the last chapter. Why doesn’t the author provide a resolved structure in his ending? What are the implications in this authorial strategy?

Teaching Suggestion: There are a number of possible responses to this analysis. Students should consider the intensity of violence in this novel and apply it to Cora’s own survival tactics.