The Boys in the Boat

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

What is a generation? What distinguishes your generation from those before? What values, ideals, or common attitudes do people of your generation tend to hold and how do they differ from those of your parents’ or grandparents’ generations? To what extent do you think a person’s generation determines or impacts their core personality, beliefs, or values? How might labeling people by their generation be limiting?   

Teaching Suggestion: This question set will activate prior knowledge before reading the text. A post-reading revisit of the last question may help students retain information. Students may appreciate opportunities to connect this discussion to memes or other social media, though allowing this connection may require stricter moderation of discussion for focus and appropriateness.

• This chapter from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s 2020 book Are Generational Categories Meaningful Distinctions for Workforce Management? explores the benefits and drawbacks of the sociological theory of generations as a lens for understanding social factors.
• This infographic from Purdue University summarizes the five generations in the current workforce.