87 pages • 2 hours read
Michelle ZaunerA 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.
Throughout the memoir, Zauner has to contend with her mother’s depreciating condition as she first goes through chemo and then decides to stop it. As a result, Zauner finds herself caring for her mother in a reversal of her childhood. Consider these points as you reflect on the text to answer the following questions:
Teaching Suggestion: Zauner’s grief permeates her memoir, and by framing the discussion through this lens, students can better understand the themes of The Difficult Relationship Between an Immigrant Mother and Her Daughter and The Undignified Reality of Death by Cancer.
Differentiation Suggestion: Students with attentional and executive function differences may benefit from preparing for this activity with a graphic organizer that contains two columns of bullet points. Each column can be used to represent one of the women, allowing students to fill in the bullet points under each woman with examples and evidence of that woman’s perception of the other.