The Last Lecture

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

When you hear the phrase “the good life,” what do you imagine? How does it relate to your childhood and future dreams? What role might secular, religious, or spiritual influences play in your definition of the phrase? Does “the good life” differ from “a good life,” and if so, how?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer introduces one of the text’s key themes: The Pursuit of Childhood Dreams. It may work well as an icebreaker or stoke to activate prior knowledge and encourage debate before exploring the following resources as a class or individually. Consider revisiting the questions after exploring the resources by having students compare their own answers to the answers offered by the sources.         

• This video from Crash Course Philosophy explores the ways in which philosophers have grappled with the concept of “the good life.”
• This article from Vanderbilt University offers an anthropologist’s perspective on the commonalities between various cultures’ definitions of “the good life.”

Short Activity

Personal storytelling plays a pivotal role in our world, from college admission essays and job interviews to branding and advertising.