The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Systems Versus Choices”

In this activity, students will explore the impact of both systems and individual choices in the lives led by both Wes Moores to argue for which accounts more for their different life outcomes and explain why this conclusion matters.

A central purpose of The Other Wes Moore is the author’s quest to understand why he found success while Wes Moore is serving a life sentence. In this activity, you will identify key systems and important choices in each young man’s life, map where each led, conclude whether choices or systems account most for their different life outcomes, and explain why this conclusion matters for the story. Your final product should combine textual details with a visual component that maps or traces each young man’s path. This may be completed in a poster, an infographic, a slideshow, or another graphic form to be informally presented to the class and/or displayed for public view.

Teaching Suggestion: Discussion of the types of systems both men navigate, such as educational institutions, peer networks, carceral systems, urban neighborhoods, and family systems, may better prepare students for tackling this project. Providing a model or familiar conceptual analog, such as the game of Life or the ecological systems theory framework from the beginning of the unit, may help students overcome the abstraction of mapping the parallel plots.

Differentiation Suggestion: Graphic organizers or step guides may be beneficial for students with organizational or executive functioning differences. For multilingual learners, preselected and/or pre-highlighted passages may help with time management and ease transitions from comprehension of text to analysis. To open this assignment up to more learning styles and cultures, consider allowing options for both group and individual work, written responses, or oral response forms.

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Both the author and Wes Moore came of age in low-income neighborhoods during a particularly crime-heavy period in American history.

• What role did the environments around them play in shaping their personalities and choices? (topic sentence)
• Describe key factors of their environments and then explain how these factors shaped their shifting personas and choices as they grew up.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, reflect on whether there is enough evidence in the book to support Dr. Cornel West’s quote “Our roots help to determine our routes.” (“A Call to Action”)

2. Both boys had absent fathers growing up and found themselves navigating their way into adulthood without fatherly guidance.

• What roles did fatherhood and its absence play in the boys’ transitions to adulthood? (topic sentence)
• Explain the similarities and differences between their relationships with their fathers and how the absence of these figures impacted their choices.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, make a statement about those who served The Role of Mentors for these boys.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. The author cites the need for positive Mentors in Young Lives as essential for their ability to succeed. What mentors and role models influenced both young men? How did differences in access to mentors or role models help account for their very different choices and life outcomes? Is this aspect sufficient to explain why Wes Moore and the author led different lives despite growing up in similar environments? Why or why not?

2. Learning and education play roles in both young men’s stories, both directly through their own experiences and indirectly through their parents’ ability to attain an education. What role did education, both institutional and incidental through social interactions, play in their respective life outcomes? Why was schooling often a source of disillusionment, anxiety, or displeasure for them as they grew up? What were the consequences? To what extent was education both necessary and insufficient in addressing their needs?

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. What is the effect of starting the story with the author and Wes Moore’s earliest memories?

A) It creates a dichotomy and establishes key differences between the characters.

B) It emphasizes the idea that the world has always been against them.

C) It humanizes both young men and underscores the importance of family ties.

D) It underscores the racial and economic disparities they faced as young Black men.

2. Why is the story divided into eight chapters?

A) It represents the years Wes Moore had served at the date of publication.

B) Each chapter represents one of the eight formative years of their lives.

C) Both boys were eight when they lost their fathers.

D) Each chapter represents the eight different neighborhoods they lived in.

3. How does the author’s mother’s past explain her parenting style, particularly toward the author?

A) An abusive relationship led her to hold her son to high standards of conduct.

B) Her Jamaican rules and customs embarrassed the author growing up.

C) Her husband’s death left her empty and distant.

D) She had low expectations for her son because he was troubled like her brother.

4. How are Mary Moore and the author’s mother similar?

A) Both women are immigrants.

B) Both women lost their mothers early and were raised by their fathers.

C) Both women have college degrees.

D) Both women made choices to provide a better life for their family.

5. Why did the author’s mother send him to Riverdale Country School?

A) He earned a scholarship to attend.

B) She wanted him to have advantages unavailable in neighborhood schools.

C) She believed it would be the best school for him because Ronald Reagan attended it.

D) She sent him as a punishment for his increasingly disruptive behavior at school.

6. What role did hip-hop play in the author’s upbringing?

A) Hip hop validated his generational identity and anxieties as a young Black man.

B) It inspired him to start DJing for extra cash to help pay his tuition.

C) His ability to rap made him popular at school.

D) His ability to memorize lyrics helped him get ahead in school and test well.

7. How did the author and Wes Moore respond to authority figures catching them in illegal acts?

A) They joined a youth organization to stay away from influences.

B) They both got arrested.

C) They regretted their actions but didn’t change them.

D) They pulled away from their mothers and ran away to live with friends.

8. Which important change took place for the author at Valley Forge Military Academy that did not take place for Wes Moore when he moved to Dundee?

A) His friends changed.

B) His expectations changed.

C) His relationship with his mother changed.

D) His mindset changed.

9. What does Wes Moore call himself the product of?

A) His environment

B) His expectations

C) A rigged system

D) Fate and God’s will

10. For Wes Moore, what is ironic about his choice to deal drugs?

A) He was on track to graduate with a scholarship before he started dealing.

B) He had never used drugs himself because of his father’s addiction struggles.

C) Some of his children struggled due to their mother’s addiction.

D) His mother told him not to sell drugs.

11. What is important about the house that Wes Moore built for his daughter in Job Corps?

A) It got her off the streets.

B) It protected her during her first years.

C) It stated Wes’s freedom.

D) It showed his devotion to her.

12. How did his time at Valley Forge Military Academy influence the author?

A) Valley Forge helped him believe he had options outside the Bronx.

B) Valley Forge showed him that military service was the only way out.

C) Valley Forge showed him that he was even tougher than his street persona.

D) Valley Forge scared him straight.

13. What does the author mean when he writes that every major city leads a double life?

A) People in city offices raging against drugs are often using drugs too.

B) However nice a city may seem, it struggles with inequality and crime.

C) Cities are very different places during the day and at night.

D) Some civic institutions support youth, and some incarcerate them.

14. How might the author’s relationship with Wes Moore and his decision to write this book show his understanding of the philosophical concept of Ubuntu?

A) They express people’s shared humanity despite their different lives.

B) They show his hopes for a second chance for Wes Moore.

C) They present a case for Wes Moore’s innocence.

D) They offer a more constructive philosophy for the students at Valley Forge.

15. Why might the author have included an update on the lives of minor figures such as Woody and Justin in the Epilogue?

A) To introduce a sense of ambiguity and dread

B) To show that tragedy is a fact of life despite one’s best intentions

C) To show that other individuals with similar names live dissimilar lives

D) To show that resilience and good choices are possible despite setbacks   

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. At one point, the author and Wes Moore discussed whether environment or expectations make a person. How might this provide a clue as to their different life trajectories?

2. In reflecting on Colin Powell’s autobiography, the author reflects on the importance of believing you “have a shot,” something he and Colin Powell learned through the military as an institution. How might this belief provide a clue as to their different life trajectories?