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. From the outset of The Beautiful Struggle, Coates’s father emerges as a central figure.

• How does Coates characterize his father? (topic sentence)
• What is the relationship like between Coates and his father? Describe how the relationship evolves from beginning to end.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explore how Coates’s father is a major figure in two of the book’s themes: Family as a Relational Force and Black Culture as Liberation.

2. Coates refers to the concepts of “Knowledge” and “Consciousness” throughout the book.

• How does Coates define “Knowledge” and “Consciousness,” both individually and relationally to one another? (topic sentence)
• What is Coates’s father’s relationship to these concepts?
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, reflect on how these concepts help create an atmosphere of Everyday Life as Myth in the memoir.