The Beautiful Struggle

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary 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. From the outset of The Beautiful Struggle, Coates’s father emerges as a central figure.

• How does Coates characterize his father? (topic sentence)
• What is the relationship like between Coates and his father? Describe how the relationship evolves from beginning to end.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explore how Coates’s father is a major figure in two of the book’s themes: Family as a Relational Force and Black Culture as Liberation.

2. Coates refers to the concepts of “Knowledge” and “Consciousness” throughout the book.

• How does Coates define “Knowledge” and “Consciousness,” both individually and relationally to one another? (topic sentence)
• What is Coates’s father’s relationship to these concepts?
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, reflect on how these concepts help create an atmosphere of Everyday Life as Myth in the memoir.

3. Certain places—for example, the city of Baltimore, NationHouse, and Mecca—emerge as characters in The Beautiful Struggle.

• How does geography relate to Coates’s coming-of-age experiences? (topic sentence)
• How do the various houses he lives in support Coates’s story?
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explore how Coates’s ability to elevate mundane places—a neighborhood, a summer camp, a college—into larger-than-life characters supports the theme of Everyday Life as Myth.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by textual details, and a conclusion.

1. How does Coates characterize his brother Big Bill throughout A Beautiful Struggle? Describe the relationship between them. In your response, compare and contrast the character of Big Bill against Coates and their father. How does Big Bill contribute to the book’s overarching theme of Family as a Relational Force? In what ways does Big Bill cause Coates to grow and mature?

2. What does rap music represent for Coates and his brother throughout the book? Identify three moments in the text where Coates discusses rap music and analyze the commentary. How does rap music add to the book’s theme of Black Culture as Liberation? How does it help Coates grow toward Knowledge and Consciousness?

3. How might The Beautiful Struggle be described as an Odyssean tale? In what ways is it a new myth for the late 20th century? Define what constitutes an “Odyssean tale,” and explore how the arc of The Beautiful Struggle mirrors that of The Odyssey. In your conclusion, explain how, by recasting Everyday Life as Myth, Coates provides readers—and particularly Black readers—with a coming-of-age mythos that more readily relates to their own experiences, while also contributing to Black Culture as Liberation.