I mentioned that I love teaching Yaa Gyasi’s novel Homegoing so much that I tend to over-teach it in my previous post. This year, I’m trying to scale back what I do with students to the essentials. I’m hoping it will increase students’ enjoyment of the novel.
When I first started teaching this book a few years ago, there were not many online teaching resources. As I read the book, I made notes of questions and issues for discussion and captured all of these ideas in a Google Doc. I can’t recommend this process highly enough. I think it’s fairly obvious, but I also think many of us don’t do it because we don’t have a lot of planning time. I think it’s a worthwhile activity because if it interests you enough to take note of, chances are your students will also find it interesting. I have mentioned before that early in my career, I relied on canned curriculum. Those curriculum folders usually came with questions I could use for discussion, but I didn’t always find them all that useful or even all that deep. They could often be surface-level questions. I will not share great long lists of discussion questions in these posts because I think it’s worthwhile to create your questions. Better yet, have your students develop the questions; they’ll be the best questions. Instead, this post and subsequent posts will share some teaching tools I’ve used to teach this novel.
The first chapter of Homegoing centers on Effia. I explain the Akan custom of naming children after the day of the week they’re born. Effia’s name means she was born on Friday. One of the novel’s main symbols, fire, is introduced in this chapter, and I make sure students notice it and discuss it. Effia receives a stone necklace in this chapter that also becomes an important symbol in the novel. We discuss the fact that Effia is born of an enslaved woman in a Fante village. Later, it becomes clear her village is heavily involved in the slave trade. I found this clip of Trevor Noah interviewing Yaa Gyasi for The Daily Show enlightening and helpful for students to watch. Trevor Noah asks Gyasi about Africans’ involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Esi’s chapter begins in medias res, making for a good discussion point. She is given a stone necklace similar to her unknown half-sister Effia’s, but she loses it in the depths of the dungeons of the Cape Coast Castle as she is being taken to a slave ship. I usually ask students to track the stone necklace through Effia’s line. Students will want to compare and contrast the characters of Effia and Esi, and several of the scenes in the chapters would make for good scene studies. Effia and Esi establish the novel’s two family histories and introduce students to the abrupt shifts in fortunes that characters will experience, demonstrating how political events, history, and fate will impact the characters in the rest of the novel.
Esi’s friend Tansi tells an Anansi story, and I like to show this clip for students who may not be as familiar with Anansi stories (true story; I remember this video from when I was in school!):
This video is long, but some excerpts might prove helpful for students in learning more about the Asante Kingdom and its people:
The History Channel’s new production of Roots included some informational videos that I also use in teaching the early chapters of Homegoing. I generally show this video, which depicts the Middle Passage, a part of Esi’s story that we do not necessarily see; however, some of her experiences in the dungeon of Cape Coast Castle echo Kunta Kinte’s in this film. What I like about this video is the incorporation of historians’ voices. The video also quickly fills in any gaps students might have in their background information on the Middle Passage.
Crash Course’s new series on Black history (featuring Clint Smith!) also has some great resources, including this video about the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Students generally find this animation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade compelling as well. When I show it, I try to point out the large numbers of ships at the time when Esi would have been transported (the 1770s).
Quey’s chapter offers opportunities to discuss issues such as masculinity, sexuality, and familial expectations. Quey makes a decision to do what his family wants him to do, to bury his dreams. His son James will make the opposite choice. Discussion of their choices and the repercussions they have on their families is always interesting.
Ness’s chapter opens with an allusion to the spiritual “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” which you might want to play for students. I found this version by Eric Bibb last year and shared it with my students.
Interestingly, like Esi’s, Ness’s chapter begins in medias res. Students might find it interesting to draw structural parallels between Esi’s chapter and Ness’s. Just as comparing and contrasting Effia and Esi’s stories are interesting, students may also find comparing and contrasting Quey and Ness compelling.
Esi and Ness’s chapters are tough to read due to the brutality of their treatment. It’s a good idea to prepare students and to hold space for them to process the impact of the reading. Teachers must teach this novel with sensitivity and awareness of its impact on students. Many of them will learn things they didn’t know about history, which may provoke some cognitive dissonance. I urge you to engage in identity work and antibias/antiracist work before teaching a novel like this so that you do not cause harm. I honestly could not have taught this book about ten years ago because I wasn’t ready, and there was too much learning I needed to do.
Thank you for your contributions.
Thank you, Devon!