All of the essays follow the same basic format. Each essay begins with an
analysis of the themes and forms of the work in question, describing its
most significant cultural foundations and formal qualities. The second part
of each essay discusses various strategies for teaching the work in a class-
room, including discussion questions and writing topics.

The third part of each essay provides three separate bibliographies. The
first, "Related Works," annotates half a dozen titles that connect to the one
under examination in this chapter--other novels, plays, autobiographies
that could best be taught with the one at hand. In the second, "Best Criti-
cism," we annotate the half-dozen books and articles that provide the most
relevant criticism on this work. In the final bibliography, "Other Sources,"
we list the remaining works, primary and secondary, that have been used in
this chapter.

America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let
it so remain. . . . Our fate is to become one, and yet many--This is
not prophecy but description.

-- Ralph Ellison ²

John: Early in Richard Wright autobiography, Black Boy, the narrator de-
scribes the devastation his family suffers after the murder of his uncle by
whites who had long wanted his successful Arkansas liquor business.

There was no funeral. There was no music. There was no period of
mourning. There were no flowers. There were only silence, quiet
weeping, whispers, and fear. I did not know when or where Uncle
Hoskins was buried. Aunt Maggie was not even allowed to see his
body nor was she able to claim any of his assets. Uncle Hoskins had
simply been plucked from our midst and we, figuratively, had fallen
on our faces to avoid looking into that white-hot face of terror that
we knew loomed somewhere above us. This was as close as white
terror had ever come to me and my mind reeled. Why had we not
fought back, I asked my mother, and the fear that was in her made
her slap me into silence. ³

When I teach the book, I read this scene, among others, asking students
to respond to the language, the events, the behavior of the characters. In
one class a decade ago, two students gave an audiovisual presentation di-

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