Discussion Questions The Other Wes Moore Introduction 1

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Discussion Questions The Other Wes Moore

Discussion Questions The Other Wes Moore

Introduction 1. The author talks about fate in the introduction. Do you believe our

Introduction 1. The author talks about fate in the introduction. Do you believe our lives’ outcomes are more a matter of fate or selfdetermination? 2. Do you believe our destinies “can be determined by a single stumble down the wrong path, or a tentative step down the right one? ” 3. What does the author mean when he says the distance between himself and the other Wes Moore “collapsed. ”? 4. What does the author mean when he says all of our stories have “high stake”? Do you agree that “life and death, freedom and bondage, hang in the balance of every action we take”?

Part 1 “On Page…. . ” 1. What themes/topics has the author chosen to

Part 1 “On Page…. . ” 1. What themes/topics has the author chosen to focus on in part 1? What do these choices say about what the author feels are important influences in a young child’s life? 2. Compare and contrast joy and Mary’s relationship with men and the boys’ fathers. 3. What do you think of the way that author’s parents handled the situation when he hit his older sister? 4. How important was education to Mary and Joy? What influences or motivations did they have to get a college education? 5. How does the author describe his father’s treatment at the hospital? Do you believe his father was treated poorly because of his appearance? What evidence is there that this is true? 6. At such a young age, why did the other Wes feel he was “the man of the house”? What does this imply?

Part 2 “On Page …. . ” 1. Why did Mary feel “safe and

Part 2 “On Page …. . ” 1. Why did Mary feel “safe and hopeful” in Northwood? What was different about it than other places the family lived? 2. How did the other Wes’s brother, Tony, “willing to risk seeming like a hypocrite”? Why did he want to be like the other Wes? Why couldn’t he be? 3. Tony “was desperately trying to give his little brother information he thought he needed, the kind of information that Tony never got. ” What specific advice did Wes take to heart in this chapter? What was the outcome? 4. Compare and Contrast the level of supervision and rules that the author experienced in the Bronx and the other Wes experienced in Northwood. Do you think the level of supervision had an effect on their decisions?

Part 3 “On Page…. . ” 1. What are the reasons the author felt

Part 3 “On Page…. . ” 1. What are the reasons the author felt stuck in the middle between his neighborhood and his private school? 2. Why do you think the baseball game between the author’s friends from school and his friends from the neighborhood ended badly? Why do you think it was so difficult for the boys to get along? 3. What do you think of the author’s claim that some governors used third-grade reading scores to project the number of beds they would need in prison facilities in the future? Why would this be a predictor? 4. Why did the author avoid drug dealers in his neighborhood and the other Wes Moore did not? What specific influences or factors led to their decisions to get involved with drugs or not? 5. How did the other Wes feel after his first time smoking marijuana? Why do you think he felt this way? What was his mother’s reaction when he came home, and why do you think she reacted this way?

Part 4 “On Page …. . ” 1. Why did Mary say she believed

Part 4 “On Page …. . ” 1. Why did Mary say she believed the other Wes when he said he was making his money Djing? Do you think she really believed it? What motivated her to search his room? 2. Why did the other Wes try to be like Tony even though Tony rejected the idea? 3. After Mary found out the other Wes was dealing drugs, she asked herself who was to blame, Tony, the neighborhood, the school system, Wes’s friends? Who do you think is to blame? Why doesn’t she blame the other Wes? Why doesn’t she include herself? 4. Why did the author feel lonely when he was cuffed in the back of the police car? What realizations did he come to while he was in this situation? 5. Compare and Contrast the experience of the author and the other Wes on the first time they go caught by the police. How were they shaped by the experience, or did it have any effect?

Part 5 “On Page …. . ” 1. What do you think of the

Part 5 “On Page …. . ” 1. What do you think of the tactics and trick the author’s superiors used when he kept trying to run away from the military school? 2. What is the difference the author finds between the respect he sees for Colonel Batt and the respect he sees for Shea in the Bronx? 3. What was Tony’s reaction when the other Wes told him Alicia was pregnant? What was his mother’s reaction? Why did they react this way? 4. Why was the other Wes “not sure he had a role” in parenting his child? 5. When Tony arrived after the other Wes was arrested, what did his mother mean when she said, “It’s too late…Wes is already gone”?

Part 6 “On Page…. . ” 1. What are the reasons the other Wes

Part 6 “On Page…. . ” 1. What are the reasons the other Wes didn’t stay in school when he was released from the juvenile detention facility? Is there anything that could have been done about this situation? What resources or support did he need to be successful in school? 2. Why didn’t the other Wes find a regular job instead of returning to the drug dealing? Did he have other options? 3. What were the author’s emotions after he read the letter from Justin? Why wasn’t he just relieved to be away from all the chaos? 4. After the author is attacked and called a racial slur, he decides to let it go. He says, “I had to look at the bigger picture. ” What did he mean by this. What were the factors that led him to this decision, as opposed to the other Wes’s decisions to retaliate? 5. When the author led Dalio back to school after the incident with the teenagers in the car, what was the irony of the situation? What had changed for the author?

Part 7 “On Page…. ”

Part 7 “On Page…. ”

Part 8 “On Page…. ”

Part 8 “On Page…. ”