The Fire This Time

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 was Jesmyn Ward’s likely vision for The Fire This Time? Speculate about Ward’s purpose in facilitating this book. What messages did she likely hope it would communicate to contemporary America?

Teaching Suggestion: It may be helpful to provide students with a brief overview of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time in order to provide students with enough context to understand Ward’s model and inspiration. After investigating Ward’s purpose and intentions with the book based on this interview or a similar resource, students might discuss how Ward conveyed this intention to the writers who contributed to the anthology.

• “‘The Fire This Time’: A New Generation of Writers on Race in America” - This resource comes from an interview between Jesmyn Ward and Audie Cornish on NPR’s All Things Considered after Ward published The Fire This Time in 2016. The text contains highlights from the interview; the full interview is included and is 8 minutes long.

2. One of the book’s main themes is Grief: A Private Pain, A Public Protest. What does it mean for the personal to become political? How does a “private pain” become a “public protest,” and how is this intersection of private and public important for social change?

Teaching Suggestion: It may be beneficial to read the following poem aloud with students before sharing this discussion questions. Students might consider the poem in an open-ended way before addressing targeted questions about its themes and messages.

• “A Litany for Survival” - This poem by Audre Lorde was first published in 1978 and explores the power of speaking out even in seemingly powerless situations. It considers the ways in which personal fear and grief can be transformed into powerful public statements.

Short Activity

The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin’s book that served as the inspiration for Jesmyn Ward’s anthology, begins with the following epigraph: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time!” This quote is a lyric from a slave song and refers to the biblical story of Noah and the Ark. Investigate resources relevant to the epigraph and the story of Noah’s Ark. Using the following guiding questions, engage in a discussion with a small group.

• What is the tone of the epigraph? What does it mean for God to send “the fire next time”? What does this foreshadow?
• How does this epigraph help set the context for Baldwin’s commentary on race, racism, and American society?
• Consider Aaron Douglas’s painting entitled Noah’s Ark. How does this painting capture the tone of the epigraph? What specific stylistic choices help emphasize this?
• How can you connect this epigraph to Ward’s title? What is significant about Ward’s revision of the quote?

Teaching Suggestion: It might be helpful to provide students with a short summary of the biblical story of Noah, the flood, and the Ark; class members might have varying degrees of familiarity with the story, depending on students’ own personal experiences with the Old Testament. Brief context for Aaron Douglas also might be beneficial; Douglas was an influential artist during the Harlem Renaissance and used his paintings to comment on the Black American experience.

• “The Fire Next Time” - This short New York Times article was published in 1963 after the publication of Baldwin’s book. It discusses Baldwin’s purpose and intention, using the book’s epigraph as a starting point.
• “Noah’s Ark, 1927 - Aaron Douglas” - This image reveals Aaron Douglas’s painting Noah’s Ark. Created in 1927, Douglas uses his trademark style to explore the story of Noah and the Ark, working within the context of the Harlem Renaissance.

Differentiation Suggestion: For students who benefit from support in organizing their thoughts, a graphic organizer for note taking might be helpful. This organizer might provide space for notes for each resource, plus space to record thoughts for each guiding question. This organizer will assist students who struggle to speak aloud in a group as well, as it provides a written record of their ideas and understanding.

Personal Connection Prompt

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

Jesmyn Ward dedicated The Fire This Time to “Trayvon Martin and the many other Black men, women, and children who have died and been denied justice for these last four hundred years.” What does this dedication mean in your own words? How does this dedication help you further anticipate what to expect from this collection of essays?

Teaching Suggestion: If necessary, students might help one another recall who Trayvon Martin was and establish a common understanding of the role his death played in what would eventually be known as the Black Lives Matter movement.