Tuesday's with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson

Tuesdays with Morrie

• Genre: Nonfiction; memoir
• Originally Published: 1997
• Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
• Structure/Length: 22 chapters; approx. 192 pages; approx. 3 hours, 42 minutes on audio
• Central Concern: In 1994, Mitch Albom, a successful sports journalist, learns that his former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz is dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Remembering a promise he made to keep in touch with his beloved teacher, Albom begins visiting Morrie over a period of 14 Tuesdays, and the two of them discuss death, aging, emotions, and the meaning of life.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Death; disease

Mitch Albom, Author

• Bio: Born in New Jersey; lives in Detroit, MI; has worked as an author, sports journalist, musician, and radio talk show host; his books have sold more than 40 million copies and have been made into movies
• Other Works: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003); For One More Day (2006); The Time Keeper (2013); The Stranger in the Lifeboat (2021)
• Awards: The Michigan Library Association’s 2020 Michigan Author Award

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Death as a Lesson
• If the Culture Doesn’t Work, Don’t Buy It
• Giving is Living

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Gain an understanding of the genres of creative nonfiction, memoir, and biography writing as ways of telling the story of a person’s real life.
• Analyze short paired texts that consider the effects of being someone close to a person with a long-term illness and that connect to the theme Death as a Lesson.
• Communicate with other readers about the top takeaways from this book and its lessons about life through an activity requiring them to argue for and defend their ideas about what is most important about the book’s message.