Salvage the Bones

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. Read the epigraph to Salvage the Bones from Outkast’s “Da Art of Storytellin’ (Part 1)” and think about its message regarding youth and growing up. Choose a lyric from a song that encapsulates your dreams for the future. Why did you choose these lyrics?   

Teaching Suggestion: This question orients the student to the novel’s themes of Renewal and Re-Birth. The characters in Salvage the Bones share the same dreams and aspirations as any other young people, but they face extraordinary social and economic challenges that increase the danger of drug addiction, poverty, and incarceration.  

• “Da Art of Storytellin’ (A Prequel)” – This 3000-word essay by Kiese Laymon explores how certain music has helped Laymon better appreciate and understand his grandmother and Black Southern artistic expression. You may consider excerpting pieces of the essay that connect most closely to the unit’s themes, specifically Attitudes Toward Women and Renewal, Re-Birth, and Its Inevitable Pain. (Teacher-facing resource)

2. What do you know about Hurricane Katrina? How did racism and poverty exacerbate the natural disaster and the societal breakdown that followed?  

Teaching Suggestion: The 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster that hit New Orleans and the surrounding areas and led to over 1800 fatalities is a central event in the novel. The aftermath of the hurricane revealed the egregious racial inequalities inherent in the American social fabric. It may be helpful to define terms such as “institutional/systemic racism” and “environmental racism” for students before engaging in a discussion of this article.

• “Remembering Katrina in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement” – This article from Medium explores the systemic racism that led to the devastation of the Black community of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It also considers the continuing consequences of environmental racism.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

Reflect on the concept of family. What makes a family? What is your relationship with your family members? Consider siblings, parents, cousins, grandparents, as well as non-blood relatives whom you consider caretakers and family members.

Teaching Suggestion: If you feel comfortable, you may wish to share your own feelings about family. Consider providing students time to reflect individually in writing before encouraging students to share their thoughts with peers in a think-pair-share.

Differentiation Suggestion: For students who might need support when speaking aloud in class, consider offering a “silent conversation” option such as having students write their sentence-level thoughts on a piece of paper that gets passed around the group and added to by each student. If this prompt is too uncomfortable for students, or if they have difficulties answering, you may consider reframing it to refer to characters from a story.