Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. In the author’s note, Saedi writes that she deliberately uses humor to tell her family’s immigration story.

• Do you think Saedi would be more or less inclined to use humor if there wasn’t a happy ending to her story? (topic sentence)
• Drawing on the text including the author’s note, analyze and discuss the primary reasons why Saedi uses humor to tell her family’s story.
• In your conclusion, summarize the extent to which Humor as a Narrative Device is beneficial to Saedi’s memoir.

2. In Americanized, Saedi struggles to navigate American ideals of beauty in conjunction with Iranian ones.

• What effect does having to balance the two standards of beauty have on Saedi? (topic sentence)
• What are some of the primary differences between American and Iranian standards of beauty? Are there any similarities? How does the comparison of the two standards impact Saedi’s perspective? Discuss these points in support of your topic sentence.