That Was Then, This Is Now

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 is typically meant by the word counterculture? What facts, historical details, and images come to mind regarding the 1960s and “hippies” in particular?

Teaching Suggestion: Showing a few images from history or pop culture may be helpful in aligning student responses with the correct general time period and movement. Once students have a chance to share their ideas (perhaps in a collective word cloud on the board or display), they might break down the term counterculture and investigate the issues commonly “countered” or protested in the period.

• “The 60s: Years That Changed America” is a 5-minute video produced by Carnegie Hall summarizing the turbulent social issues at play during the 1960s and emphasizing the period’s art and music.
• Robert Palomo’s “The Last Nomad Hippies” is a photo essay published in The Guardian that offers a look at “hippie” culture today.
• This overview of “hippie” culture identifies key characteristics of this movement.

2. What kinds of issues and stories do young adult novels typically address? How is young adult fiction typically characterized? How does this genre differ from other fiction genres?

Teaching Suggestion: To get started, students might brainstorm the names of a few popular titles within the genre. Alternatively, it might be helpful to display a handful of books and ask students to guess which one is a young adult novel; they can walk through their thought process aloud as they do so.

• “The Evolution of YA: Young Adult Fiction, Explained” is a 6-minute video by PBS Voices summarizing the history and evolution of the YA genre.
• This 5-minute televised interview with S. E. Hinton marks the 50th anniversary of her debut novel, The Outsiders, and considers its role in the development of the YA genre.

Personal Connection Prompt

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

That Was Then, This Is Now explores the way that personal changes, even beneficial ones, often come with a sense of loss. Compare your life now with how it was at a point in the past (a year, five years, or even longer). How have you changed since then? Do you have any regrets? What would you communicate to your younger self, if you could?

Teaching Suggestion: Students should set a reasonable timeframe for reflection; aligning their comparison to the age range represented by the main characters in the novel (the teenage years) may be the most beneficial. If you choose to have a discussion on this topic, you might help students identify ways in which their experiences differ or overlap. To connect with Hinton’s theme of The Choices and Responsibilities of Adulthood, encourage students to consider how their feelings about their pasts have changed over time.