Use these links to supplement and complement students’ reading of the work and to increase their overall enjoyment of literature. Challenge them to discern parallel themes, engage through visual and aural stimuli, and delve deeper into the thematic possibilities presented by the title.

Recommended Texts for Pairing

“A Small Needful Fact” by Ross Gay

• 2015 poem written in memory of Eric Garner
• connects to themes of Mortality, Memory, and Humanity’s Place in the Natural World
• Compare the interconnectivity of humanity and nature (especially earth or “clay”) in the poem and short story; consider what this interdependence implies about the nature of life, death, and remembrance.
• “A Small Needful Fact” on SuperSummary

Wit by Margaret Edson

• 1995 play about a literature professor diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer; won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into a 2001 film of the same name
• connects to the theme of Acceptance of Mortality
• Compare not only Azucena and Vivian’s responses to impending death, but also the difficulty those around them have in accepting it.
• Wit on SuperSummary

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Women, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

• 2013 nonfiction work about the interdependence of humanity and the natural world and its implications for sustainability
• connects to the theme of Empathy and Humanity’s Place in the Natural World
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