112 pages • 3 hours read
Jesmyn WardThe Fire This Time
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
After Reading
Discussion/Analysis Prompt
James Baldwin is a significant and ever-present influence on The Fire This Time. Not only is the title a direct reference to his own text, but Baldwin’s words and works appear in many different essays. How does The Fire This Time work in conversation with Baldwin’s own ideas? Consider these points as you reflect on the text to answer the question.
- In what ways do Baldwin’s ideas inform the essays and in what ways do the essays expand beyond Baldwin’s thoughts?
- How does the presence of James Baldwin’s works and ideas help in developing the text’s main themes of Remembrance and Recognition, Grief: A Private Pain, A Public Protest, and Finding Hope in Heritage?
Teaching Suggestion: As a starting point for preparation for the discussion, it may be useful to help the class brainstorm a list of the essays that allude to Baldwin’s life or works. Students also might revisit the Short Activity for ideas and information. Additionally, Baldwin’s essay “My Dungeon Shook” may serve as a beneficial supplemental text for this discussion.
Differentiation Suggestion: For students who benefit from support in organizing their thoughts and processing information, consider providing students with a labeled chart with space to record their thoughts prior to the discussion as well as space to record their peers’ thoughts shared during the discussion.
Activity
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.
“Other Voices in The Fire This Time”
In this activity, students will explore other writers and activists mentioned and described in The Fire This Time and use this supplemental information to deepen their understanding of the text’s messages and themes.
Throughout many of the essays in The Fire This Time, other writers, artists, and figures from history are referenced and discussed. Some of these people are other Black artists and writers. Some are figures from history, both white and Black. Choose one of these figures to learn more about with the intention of better understanding the essay(s) in which they appear and deepening your overall understanding of the text’s messages and themes.
- Choose one person who appears in any essay in the anthology. Possibilities include James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Langston Hughes, Phillis Wheatley, Octavia Butler, Walt Whitman, Thomas Jefferson, Lee Atwater, Crispus Attucks, OutKast, Lauryn Hill, and Barack Obama.
- Research this person’s life and significance in the arts, politics, society, culture, or other area.
- Read or study some of this person’s own work, such as poems, speeches, lectures, essays, music, art.
- Evaluate this person’s presence in The Fire This Time. How does a deeper understanding of this person help supplement your reading of the essays?
Present your findings and thoughts visually. Your presentation may take the form of a poster, a slideshow, a video, or other visual expression. Your presentation must provide context and background for the person you selected, examples of their own words/work, and direct quotes from The Fire This Time that help establish the role this person plays in conveying meaning and developing themes in the text.
Teaching Suggestion: Students might work in small groups to match notable figures with specific essays. The class can engage in follow-up discussion after students have a chance to view each other’s presentations.
Essay Questions
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. In The Fire This Time, many authors discuss the significance of role models and mentors in their own development and identity-shaping.
- What is the importance of models and mentors in one’s own growth as a writer, thinker, and activist? (topic sentence)
- Analyze the ways in which models and mentors are discussed and presented, as well as the roles they play in shaping another’s sense of identity and purpose. Cite direct evidence from 3 different essays to support your points.
- In your concluding sentence or sentences, connect your thoughts to the theme of Finding Hope in Heritage.
2. The concept of grief is a significant presence in many of the essays in The Fire This Time.
- How is the theme of Grief: A Private Pain, A Public Protest developed throughout the book? (topic sentence)
- Analyze the ways that grief appears in various essays. Cite direct evidence from 3 essays to support your thoughts.
- In your concluding sentences, explain how grief, in addition to an expression of mourning, is also shown as a vehicle for action, change, and justice.
Full Essay Assignments
Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by textual details, and a conclusion.
1. The Fire This Time is organized into 3 sections—“Legacy,” “Reckoning,” and “Jubilee.” What is the purpose and function of each section, and how do the three sections work together to convey holistic meaning? How does this structural choice help support and develop one of the unit’s main themes? As you compose your essay, cite direct evidence from essays from each of the 3 sections that strengthen your points of discussion.
2. The presence of the Black body is a motif seen in many of the essays in The Fire This Time. How is the Black body shown, represented, and discussed in various essays? Analyze how this motif is used to develop the theme of Remembrance and Recognition. Consider essays such as “Lonely in America” and “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning,” as well as others. As you construct your essay, cite direct evidence from 3 essays to strengthen your points of discussion.
Cumulative Exam Questions
Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.
Multiple Choice
1. What form of poetry does “The Tradition” most closely represent?
A) Pantoum
B) Sonnet
C) Villanelle
D) Haiku
2. What idea best describes the overall tone of Jesmyn Ward’s Introduction?
A) Pessimistic
B) Confused
C) Hopeful
D) Mournful
3. Which statement best describes Walters’ emotional state before she reads and reflects on the archaeologists’ report from the Portsmouth, NH, burial ground?
A) She feels uncertain.
B) She feels disturbed.
C) She feels resolved.
D) She feels determined.
4. What description best explains Honoree Jeffers’ attitude toward Margaretta Odell in “The Dear Pledges of Our Love”?
A) Skeptical
B) Disappointed
C) Grateful
D) Angry
5. Which of the following passages from “Blacker Than Thou” best summarizes the author’s main point of the essay?
A) “It would be one thing, I think, if in her house, to her pillow or family, Dolezal said she felt [B]lack.”
B) “She wears the mask not to hide but to gain authority over the very thing she claims to want to be.”
C) “While [B]lack folks often hear the beat, and set it, doesn’t mean when anyone else hears it, that she gets to be [B]lack.”
D) “Black people are constantly identifying and recognizing those who look like secret [B]lack folks.”
6. Which statement best describes the impact that Lauryn Hill’s music had on Kiese Laymon?
A) It inspired him to write a novel.
B) It encouraged him to go back to school.
C) It prompted him to reconnect with his grandmother.
D) It helped him recognize misogynoir.
7. What idea best describes the tone of the last paragraph of Kiese Laymon’s essay “Da Art of Storytellin’ (A Prequel)”?
A) Bitter
B) Uncertain
C) Grateful
D) Hopeful
8. Why does Cadogan move to New Orleans from Kingston, Jamaica?
A) To go to college
B) To become a writer
C) To be closer to family
D) To take a new job
9. To which of the following concepts does the title of Claudia Rankine’s essay “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning” refer?
A) Generational trauma
B) Being a mother of a Black son
C) Losing the illusion of safety
D) The grief of witnessing violence
10. What is the primary intention of the Know Your Rights mural campaign?
A) To protest and agitate
B) To confuse and complicate
C) To educate and protect
D) To calm and reassure
11. How is the essay “Composite Pops” structured?
A) In chronological order
B) Thematically by trait
C) In a series of flashbacks
D) By each father figure
12. What literary device is exemplified in “Where rigging of shrimp boats are loose stitches in a sky,” a line from “Theories of Time and Space”?
A) Metaphor
B) Personification
C) Simile
D) Hyperbole
13. To whose words does the title of Daniel Jose Older’s essay “This Far: Notes on Love and Revolution” allude?
A) Eqbal Ahmad’s
B) James Baldwin’s
C) Michel Foucault’s
D) Tracy Chapman’s
14. Where was Edwidge Danticat born, as she discusses in her essay “Message to My Daughters”?
A) The Dominican Republic
B) New York City
C) Haiti
D) New Orleans
15. What word best describes the tone of the final passage of “Message to My Daughters”?
A) Optimistic
B) Uncertain
C) Pragmatic
D) Triumphant
Long Answer
Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating textual details to support your response.
1. Describe Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah’s relationship to James Baldwin as discussed in her essay “The Weight.”
2. What is the main difference between Garnette Cadogan’s experience walking the city streets in Jamaica versus New Orleans and New York, and how does this difference affect his way of existing in these spaces?
Exam Answer Key
Multiple Choice
1. B (“The Tradition” by Jericho Brown)
2. C (Introduction by Jesmyn Ward)
3. B (“Lonely in America” by Wendy S. Walters)
4. A (“The Dear Pledges of Our Love” by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers)
5. B (“Blacker Than Thou” by Kevin Young)
6. D (“Da Art of Storytellin’ [A Prequel]” by Kiese Laymon)
7. C (“Da Art of Storytellin’ [A Prequel]” by Kiese Laymon)
8. A (“Black and Blue” by Garnette Cadogan)
9. B (“The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning” by Claudia Rankine)
10. C (“Know Your Rights!” by Emily Raboteau)
11. D (“Composite Pops” by Mitchell S. Jackson)
12. A (“Theories of Time and Space” by Natasha Trethewey)
13. B (“This Far: Notes on Love and Revolution” by Daniel Jose Older)
Long Answer
1. Ghansah became devoted to Baldwin when she was a young intern at a publishing company. She grew to view him in a more complicated and nuanced way as she grew older, however, and immersed herself in the works of other writers and thinkers. She also found that she quietly resented Baldwin; he and her grandfather were close in age, but unlike Baldwin who escaped to France, Ghansah’s grandfather was subjected to a lifetime of American racism at home. At the same time, Ghansah admires the way Baldwin ultimately embraced his own mortality and, in writing down so much of his life and ideas, kept pieces of himself alive and continues to inspire new generations. (“The Weight” by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah)
2. The main difference between Kingston, Jamaica and the American cities is that, in Kingston, Cadogan was a Black man in a predominantly Black society. There were dangers and threats, but he himself was not the perceived threat. In New Orleans and New York, Cadogan realizes that he is viewed as a potential threat. This causes him to develop his own systems for presenting himself as safe and for navigating interactions with white pedestrians and police officers. (“Black and Blue” by Garnette Cadogan)
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