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

Consider the importance of friendship. How do friends benefit when they think similarly or share common interests and beliefs? What are some of the positive impacts of having friends who think differently or have different interests and beliefs?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer question invites students to consider the novel’s theme of The Complexity of Friendship. Bauer’s protagonist, Joel, has very little in common with his childhood friend Tony; in fact, Joel wonders how they continue to be friends despite their different approaches to life. The two, however, are bonded by their shared past. Students might meet in small groups to share and discuss individual responses. To extend discussion in the large group setting, class members might contribute examples of friendships from previously read novels and evaluate whether the friends had much or little in common and the extent to which this impacted the quality of the friendship.

• Psychology Today explores the idea of friendship in “The 13 Essential Traits of Good Friends.”
• This curated list of “
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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