Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

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. Throughout the text, Kimmerer tells stories involving her family.

• What motif in the text is supported by incorporating these stories? (topic sentence)
• Give at least three examples from different sections of the text that support the link you have established between these stories and a larger motif in the text.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, comment on how this motif supports one or more of the text’s thematic concerns: The Need for Reciprocity Between Humanity and Nature, The Intersection of Science and Spirituality, and Overconsumption as a Consequence of Modern Capitalism.

2. One of the central arguments of Braiding Sweetgrass is that hope for the future of the planet can be found at The Intersection of Science and Spirituality.