Notes From The Midnight Driver

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. What stressful events and situations do nursing home residents often face? What is the connection between physical health and depression? What factors might be essential for people’s quality of life in a nursing home? What are some ways people in the surrounding community can help in nursing home facilities?

Teaching Suggestion: It might be beneficial to connect to and introduce the protagonist’s central conflict via this prompt. Alex is assigned to care for a nursing home resident, Sol. Alex has difficulty connecting with Sol because of Sol’s combative and insulting demeanor. While Sol is not described as having a mental health condition, he has been diagnosed with emphysema prior to the events that take place in the novel. Much later in the novel, Sol informs Alex of his estranged relationship with his daughter. Consider discussing the various difficulties nursing home residents face and how these difficulties affect their mental and emotional well-being, as well as the benefits nursing home residents receive from positive peer and family relationships.

• This article describes some of the mental and emotional hardships faced by people who enter nursing home facilities. (Note: This research paper is lengthy; to lighten the reading load for students, you might have them focus on these three sections: Introduction, Aim, Conclusion and Clinical Implications.)
• This 6-minute video describes life in a residential care facility for the elderly and some of the ways people in the community can help nursing home residents.

2. What is the influence of music on culture? What are some of the social benefits of music? How does music unite people? How does music benefit individuals?

Teaching Suggestion: It might be useful to pique reader interest in the novel with this question about music. Alex has been assigned to Sol, an elderly Jewish man, as community service after a drunk driving offense. Alex is angry at his parents due to their divorce, and Sol is angry over his own life experiences. Sol and Alex bond over music. Consider discussing the various benefits of music in connecting people as well as the benefits of emotional well-being for individuals. Then consider discussing the cultural impact of music. The connection between “Sunrise, Sunset,” a song from Fiddler on the Roof, is especially important in the novel because Sol shares in the Jewish culture and relatable details of the song.

• This textbook chapter describes the connection between music and culture.
• This article describes the benefits of music for social and emotional health.

Personal Connection Prompt

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

Describe a time when you felt overwhelmed with an emotion and acted on it in an inappropriate way. What was the emotion, and why did you feel it? What were the consequences of acting on the emotion you had? Describe some healthy ways people can deal with overwhelming emotions.

Teaching Suggestion: Alex, feeling an overwhelming emotion, gets drunk and wrecks a car. Throughout the novel, Alex’s emotional intelligence grows as he learns to deal with difficult circumstances in healthier ways. With sensitivity to student experiences, consider allowing students to explore this prompt and brainstorm healthy ways to deal with conflict and intense emotions.

Differentiation Suggestion: For students who require an additional challenge, consider allowing the students to research the connection between poor decisions and how emotions affect those decisions.