68 pages • 2 hours read
Wilson RawlsA 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.
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
1. Where the Red Fern Grows is set in the Ozarks of Oklahoma during the Great Depression. What was life like in the Ozarks during the 1930s, and how can this knowledge help set the context for Billy’s experience in the novel?
Teaching Suggestion: You may consider providing brief context for the economic, environmental, and human causes of The Great Depression and its impact on already-struggling rural areas.
2. There are many parallels between Billy’s story in Where the Red Fern Grows and author Wilson Rawls’s own childhood. How does an understanding of Wilson Rawls’s personal history help readers anticipate themes of the novel?
Teaching Suggestion: You might consider providing students with the guide’s major themes before exploring Wilson Rawls’s biography and encouraging students to make hypotheses about what they expect to see in the novel.
By Wilson Rawls