The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

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.

“Literary Code Switching”

In this activity, students will use creative thinking to write a short narrative using “code switching.”

Díaz’s novel employs a very distinctive style, constantly switching between an eloquent, academic tone and a lively, Caribbean vernacular. Shifting back and forth between different speech registers is known as “code switching.” To demonstrate your understanding of the technique, you will use code switching in a short narrative of your own. Your story can be about anything, but make sure to take the following into consideration:

• What are the speech registers or “codes” between which you will be switching?
• What principles guide each of your speech registers? You might use one “code” for the main narrative and another “code” to explore certain themes or motifs, for instance.
• What cultures or communities are your chosen “codes” associated with? What role do these cultures or communities play in your narrative?

After completing this activity, students can turn their narratives in to the instructor or present them in front of the class. This activity should spark discussions on the many different speech registers we use in our daily lives and where these come from (e.g., communities, families, professions).

Teaching Suggestion: Before having students start this activity, students might define “code switching” and think critically about some of the ways we use code switching in our everyday lives. We might use one speech register to speak to our parents and another to speak to our friends or peers, for instance. It may help to discuss some examples of different speech registers and emphasize the importance of context and cultural appropriateness: There are, for instance, certain vernacular or slang terms that one can use in informal contexts that would be highly inappropriate in professional contexts.

Differentiation Suggestion: To encourage students with an interest in the performing arts, consider allowing them to write their narrative as a “script” that they can perform with the class. Alternatively, you might allow them to find an example of a narrative or script that employs code switching and perform that in front of the class, explaining why their selection is representative of code switching.

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. Throughout the novel, Díaz regularly alludes to ideas, customs, and social behaviors of cultural significance.

• What is the role of cultural references in the narrative? (topic sentence)
• Analyze the way Díaz uses cultural references and the way these references relate to the novel’s central themes of The Use of Fantasy and Science Fiction to Explain Generational Trauma, Dominican American Identity in the Late-20th Century, and The Damage Caused by Personal and Political Masculinity.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, evaluate the way the novel’s cultural references help the characters grapple with trauma through storytelling.

2. Masculinity is one of the central concerns of the novel and its characters, especially the male characters.

• How do the male characters of the novel—including Oscar, Yunior, Abelard, and Trujillo—exhibit different aspects of masculinity? (topic sentence)
• Citing specific passages and examples, describe the role of masculinity in Dominican culture and analyze the way different characters in the novel represent this idea of masculinity.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, reflect on how masculinity is illustrated in the novel and whether there are both good and bad aspects to masculinity.

3. The novel reflects on many of the cultural incongruities of being Dominican American at the end of the 20th century.

• How do Oscar, Lola, and Yunior deal with the cultural incongruities of being Dominican American? (topic sentence)
• Discuss some of the cultural incongruities experienced by the Dominican diaspora in the US in the late 20th century and the way these are experienced by the characters of the novel.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, reflect on how Oscar, Lola, and Yunior experience their cultural diaspora in different ways and discuss why this is significant.

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. When he describes what he calls the “Fall” of the Cabral clan, Yunior offers an alternative explanation for Abelard’s arrest and imprisonment: He says that it is possible that the real reason Trujillo went after Abelard was not because he slandered him, but because he wrote a book claiming that Trujillo’s power had its origins in the supernatural. Discuss the way the novel represents Trujillo and his connections with supernatural powers, such as fukú. How is Trujillo representative of the way the Cabral-de León clan seek supernatural explanations for their political and personal trauma?

2. Consider the novel’s constant cultural and literary allusions to science fiction and fantasy. What are some prominent allusions that recur throughout the novel? How do the characters of the novel correspond to characters from these works of science fiction and fantasy (such as The Lord of the Rings or The Watchmen)?

3. As the novel’s main narrator, Yunior sometimes makes references to what he calls páginas en blanco. What are páginas en blanco, and what is their significance? How does this idea reflect the personal and familial traumas of the Cabral-de León clan, as well as the collective trauma experienced by the Dominican people throughout the 20th century?

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

Multiple Choice

1. What is the name of the counterspell used to counteract fukú?

A) Trujillo

B) Zafa

C) Columbus

D) Wao

2. Who are Maritza Chacón and Olga Polanco?

A) Girls Oscar dated simultaneously when he was seven

B) Lola’s best friends

C) Oscar and Lola’s aunts

D) Both A and B

3. Which of the following quotes best represents Oscar’s attitude towards women?

A) “[A]las he was still the passionate enamorao who fell in love easily and deeply.”

B) “Even your Watcher has his silences, his páginas en blanco.”

C) “If you ask me I don’t think there are any such things as curses. I think there is only life.”

D) “[B]ut what really got him was not the bam-bam-bam of sex—it was the little intimacies that he’d never in his whole life anticipated.”

4. With whom does Lola stay when her mother sends her to Santo Domingo?

A) Her father

B) The Gangster

C) La Inca

D) Max

5. Which comic book character does Yunior compare himself to throughout the novel?

A) Superman

B) Captain America

C) Dr. Who

D) The Watcher

6. Why does Belicia lose her high school scholarship?

A) She frequently misses school.

B) She has very poor grades.

C) She is caught having sex with a classmate.

D) She is caught smoking a cigarette.

7. Why does “La Fea” target Belicia?

A) Because she hates La Inca

B) Because she hated her father

C) Because she is jealous of her good looks

D) Because she was having an affair with her husband

8. What guides Belicia out of the canefield where she is nearly beaten to death?

A) A bat

B) A tiger

C) A man without a face

D) A golden mongoose

9. Why does Abelard try to hide Jacquelyn from Trujillo?

A) Because she insulted him

B) Because he does not want him to rape her

C) Because he thinks she is smarter than he is

D) Because she has a mental health condition

10. Why does La Inca not initially help Abelard during the “Fall” in Chapter 5?

A) She is busy setting up her new business.

B) She has been on bad terms with Abelard.

C) She is busy mourning her late husband.

D) She is in America.

11. Which character gets cancer?

A) Belicia

B) Lola

C) Yunior

D) Oscar

12. Who is Oscar’s final love interest?

A) Ana

B) Maritza

C) Ybón

D) He never reveals her name

13. Why does Oscar say he wound up beaten in the canefields?

A) Because of his connections with Abelard

B) Because of the fukú

C) Because of his novels

D) Because he is a virgin

14. What does Lola mean when she says, “Ten million Trujillos is all we are” (Chapter 8, Page 323)?

A) That all Dominicans are complicit in the evils perpetrated by their government

B) That Trujillo has hurt all Dominicans

C) That the Dominican Republic won’t become a better place until a new Trujillo is elected

D) That Trujillo’s curse has spread to all Dominicans

15. What does Oscar see as the most special part of sex?

A) Giving another person pleasure

B) The little intimacies before, after, and between sex

C) Feeling love for somebody else

D) Losing one’s virginity

Long Answer

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

1. Who sees the golden mongoose and the man without a face? When do they appear?

2. Why is Yunior so afraid for Lola’s daughter at the end of the novel?