Between the World and Me

Use these links to supplement and complement students’ reading of the work and to increase their overall enjoyment of literature. Challenge them to discern parallel themes, engage through visual and aural stimuli, and delve deeper into the thematic possibilities presented by the title.

Recommended Texts for Pairing

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon

• This book of essays interrogates being Black in the South and is in dialogue with many of the same issues as Between the World and Me, particularly the precarity of the Black body.
• The title essay and the essay “The Worst of White Folks” would be fitting excerpts.

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

• This graphic YA novel provides a young man’s perspective as he is trapped in a cycle of Black-on-Black violence.
• This would be particularly well-suited for younger readers or readers who are not used to engaging with this kind of material, as it provides an immediate, empathetic portrayal of the precarity of the Black body.

Malcolm X, “Message to the Grassroots”

• Coates’ outlook is far more in line with Malcolm X’s than with the broader (and more historically lauded) Civil Rights movement. This speech outlines the main points of Malcolm X’s philosophy.
• Reinforces the themes of the danger of the dream and the importance of remembering the past

Other Student Resources

Whiteness

• The National Museum of African American History and Culture provides a comprehensive overview of whiteness as a racial marker that defines itself through white supremacy.
• Provides context and further clarification for the danger of the dream

Reading Between the World and Me in Context by Matthew Shenoda

• Provides a discussion of the critical reception of the book and its role as a book that is not written for a white audience but has still found one
• Situates Coates in the context of other Black writers and intellectuals, reinforcing his theme of the importance of remembering the past



Teacher Resources

How to Be an Anti-Racist Educator

• Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) provides an excellent overview of the importance of adopting antiracist practices in the classroom and curriculum.
• Provides important frameworks for approaching difficult material that interrogates race, particularly for white educators or educators who have not had training in the topic of race in the classroom.