The Danger of a Single Story

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. “The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.”

• Why does Adichie suggest that we need to challenge “single stories”? (topic sentence)
• Explain the need to challenge single stories using 1-2 examples from Adichie’s own experiences.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, discuss how this idea applies to your own experiences.

2. Adichie opens with her experiences reading about British and American children and then modeling her own story characters on them, despite having no firsthand experiences with snow, apples, or ginger beer. She stresses the importance of the power of seeing oneself reflected in stories.