A Young People's History of the United States

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their 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. Throughout A Young People’s History of the United States, Zinn presents historical figures and movements in ways that run counter to the traditional narrative, which usually presents them as heroic.

• Which historical figure or movement, as recast by Zinn, did you find most surprising? (topic sentence)
• What about Zinn’s characterization of this historical figure or movement surprised you? Give specific examples.
• Discuss how your previously held belief about the historical figure or movement may have been influenced by the dominant narrative of American Heroism, which, as uncovered by Zinn, is a Subjective and Problematic Concept.

2. The American colonies of the late 1700s differed fundamentally in many ways from the United States today—and yet, in many ways, society has not evolved.