The Inquisitor’s Tale

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. Have you ever read a book that has more than one narrator? How does it change the experience of reading a story when you hear different perspectives from different narrators? Have you ever heard of a “frame story”? What is this, or what do you guess it might be?

Teaching Suggestion: Depending on your students’ backgrounds, they may have little pre-existing knowledge about stories with multiple narrative perspectives. Even those with a lot of reading experience may never have heard the term “frame story.” Encourage students to make thoughtful guesses in any part of this prompt that contains unfamiliar ideas or phrases. Waiting until after they have given the prompt some thought before offering them the resources below will help them contextualize the information within their prior knowledge and increase their retention of any new information.

• This article in which author Aimie Runyan discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using multiple narrators.
• This 7-minute video is a guide to frame stories from the Oregon State University Writing Lab.