One Crazy Summer

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. Why is the year 1968 significant in American history?

Teaching Suggestion: It may be beneficial to provide students with sub-categories for interrogating this broad topic. For instance, this timeline from the Smithsonian highlights four categories: civil rights, gender equality, the Vietnam War, and student movements. It may also be helpful to break students into small groups or pairs to explore how each of these categories contributes to what many call one of the most revolutionary years in American history. Another subcategory for students to research might be the roles of children in these movements (an offshoot of student movements).

• This article from History.com functions as a timeline of 1968, outlining historically and politically significant events from that year.
• This resource page from The National Archives points to multimedia and primary sources pulled directly from the archives, national museums, and presidential libraries.

2. What was The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense?

Teaching Suggestion:  For many students, this may be a contentious topic spanning knowledge from a variety of perspectives and sources. Class exploration of the topic would benefit from the use of a KWL chart to structure student research. Students can fill in what they think they know and what they want to know, then reflect on whether their previous knowledge was correct once research is complete. Working in pairs or small groups may be beneficial depending on the amount of time allotted for this small research project. It might be important to help students focus their research on the original Black Panther Party of the 1960s, and less on modern iterations of the party. Research on the latter would provide broad background knowledge and help students connect the historical narrative to current issues; however, newer iterations of the Black Panther Party wouldn’t necessarily help students build background knowledge directly related to this novel. 

• “The Black Panther Party: Challenging Police and Promoting Social Change” is an article from the National Museum of African American History and Culture that provides a web-friendly overview of the activist work of the Black Panther Party.
• This YouTube video from Time discusses one of the Black Panther Party’s many community outreach efforts: free health clinics and other programs. It connects their legacy to how healthcare professionals rallied to combat deadly COVID-19 rates in the Black community in a similar fashion following the onset of the 2020 pandemic. 
• This resource page from The National Archives points to multimedia and primary sources directly from the archives and national museums.
• This blog post from the University of California Press reproduces the Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program.

Differentiation Suggestion: Students with little to no background knowledge on this topic might be helped by additional scaffolding, such as a pre-selected list of questions to research in pairs. 

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

What’s in a name? What does your name mean? Is there a story about how you got your name, where it came from, or its meaning within your family or culture? Has your name ever changed? Would you want to change it? Why or why not?

Teaching Suggestion: This question piques students’ interest in the novel by prompting them to examine The Importance of Naming. In the novel’s first chapter, Delphine refers to “Cassius Clay clouds,” which provides early insight into her character and is a discussion topic that astute readers will understand more as the novel progresses. 

• The feature article "Cassius Marcellus Clay and Muhammed Ali: What’s in a Name?" appears on the website History News Network, which is housed at the George Washington University. The occasion for this article was the release of the HBO documentary What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali. While a little long for students to read in its entirety, the article features direct quotes from Muhammad Ali on why he changed his name from Cassius Clay. It also tells the history of the man for whom Ali was originally named and compares their life stories. This may be an interesting read for both teachers and advanced students.