Teaching Guide: Young Adult Literature Authors & Climate Justice

Note: The following questions derive from the Q&A session that followed Profs. Jamieson, Streeby, and Dimick's panel discussion that was held on January 30, 2024. They were submitted by an online audience and have been reframed for a teacher to pose to their students or for a book discussion group to adapt to start conversation.

• What is young adult literature? Why might we classify Parable of the Sower as young adult literature?
• If you were teaching Parable of the Sower, what historical considerations might you have to address? How would teaching the book in 1994 be the same or different as teaching it 2024 or 2054?
• How might Octavia Butler’s, among other Black luminaries, representation in the Afrofuturism exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, in Washington, D.C., inform a reader’s experience with her work?
• Early in the Parable of the Sower, there’s a discussion about how people don’t want to discuss difficult topics and a quote about people being “anchored in the past, waiting for the good old days to come back” — How do you see that and other aspects of the book reflecting the push to “return to normal” and unwillingness by many people to acknowledge the repercussions of the lengthy COVID-19 pandemic?
• How do you think the themes of this novel could shake up those in power toward bolder climate change advocacy? Which themes, plot elements, and how so? How might the novel affect the lay citizen?
• In an age of possible declining religiosity, how might the novel bring people to consider that we all need to believe in something? How do you respond to the character making her own religion?
• Privatization is often advertised as lowering prices, lowering taxes, or creating options that make people think they have a sense of security. Yet, a false sense of security may encourage people to vote against their own interests. How do we combat that to prioritize community, nature, and public services?
• How did you encounter Parable of the Sower – did you listen to an audiobook, did you read it as an eBook or a print book? How do you think the medium affected your processing of the book and its themes?
• Visit and explore the online components of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network. Who is involved and impacted? What is the purpose? The audience?
• Why do you think Butler used the word "God" when developing Lauren's religion, which was about change and not the usual sense of the word “God”?
• How would you connect the global justice/climate change lens to the theological perspective that Octavia Butler brought forth in the Parable series? And how do you see both inspiring current readers to take action, or new writings?
• What is a trigger warning and what does triggering mean? If you were to teach this book, how might you approach introducing the book to students who have this worry or criticism? If a work of science fiction is considered triggering, how should we shift approaches to teaching the work to care for our students?
• Some believe that the novel stresses the importance of gun ownership. What are your thoughts on that?
• What is to be said about the self-determination of firearms and self-defense training for Black folks with underrepresented genders in a time of gun violence?
• What is the role of fiction in creating change? Change is obviously an important theme in the book, but is there something about fiction as a medium that is especially compelling when it comes to motivating public action with regard to climate change and environmental degradation?