Heavy

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Kiese Laymon is an author, professor, and MacArthur Genius Grant fellow. In the following video, he discusses the role of revision on both a personal and societal level. What is the purpose and importance of revision, both individually and collectively? What do you anticipate encountering in his memoir Heavy?

Teaching Suggestion: The following resource can help introduce Laymon and set the stage for students as they read Heavy and grapple with the text’s various themes, specifically Truth and Lies. Consider guiding students through a discussion about the intersections of Laymon’s personal growth and development and that of American society. As students begin responding to the prompt, it may also be helpful to extend the discussion to include a question about whether they think it is important to discuss failures as well as successes, and why.

• This 3-minute video from the MacArthur Fellows Program includes, in Laymon’s own words, a discussion of the importance of heritage, themes, and revision.

2. Part of Kiese Laymon’s memoir deals with his relationship to language and his mother’s insistence on “proper” English, rather than the African American English more widely spoken in his community.