The Message

Identify the rhetorical situation of one or more of the essays in The Message. What is the audience for the text? What is Coates’s purpose in writing the text? What kinds of evidence and appeals does Coates use to connect with that audience?

According to Coates, why is storytelling important? What kinds of power does storytelling grant, and what responsibilities does it confer? How does Coates use storytelling to advance his arguments?

How does Coates seek to counter dominant historical narratives, and to what ends? How does he position himself within a tradition of such resistance? Use details from the text to support your answer.

Coates tells his students that “[t]here has to be something in you, something that hungers for clarity” (18-19). Discuss the importance of clarity in the writer’s work. Is Coates always able to achieve clarity? If not, discuss those moments and what accounts for them.

Coates says of “The Case for Reparations” that his “stewardship had faltered” in his use of Israel as an example of people who benefited from reparations (143). Of what is he a steward, and how does he address that failure in “The Gigantic Dream”?

The Message is in part a travelogue, a genre in which a traveler recounts their observations and experiences in a particular place. What did Coates learn about himself, writing, and reality in each of the places he visited?

Identify the myths that Coates discusses in The Message. What purposes do they serve, and whom do they benefit? Why is he so suspicious of myths, and how does he go about debunking them?

Consider the title. What, ultimately, is the message that Coates wants his readers to receive in reading The Message? Does the book have a singular message, or are there multiple messages? How does the book—either implicitly or explicitly—reveal these messages?