Questioning Circles Sample questions for “Girl” and “Letter to El Mateo” The text: Who is talking to whom in the story “Girl”? Why is “Girl” written as one long sentence? What's the significance of the combination of both Spanish and non-standard English in “Letter to El Mateo”? The reader: What kinds of instructions have you received from a parent about how to be a “proper” member of your gender? What would you do if your teenage daughter ran off with an older guy? The world or other texts: What is benna—who sings it and where and when? How is inter-cultural dating regarded in the border towns of Juarez and El Paso? The text and the reader: Which aspects of “Girl” resonate with your own experiences? Which mother would you rather have as your own, the one in “Girl” or “Mateo”? Why? The reader and the world: Where do you see gender expectations expressed in our culture? Given similar economic and cultural conditions, would you respond the same way Lordes does? The text and the world (or other texts): What are the cultural conditions shaping the mother's expectations of her daughter in “Girl”? How do conditions in U.S. and Mexico border towns influence the characters in “El Mateo”? In what ways does the motherin “El Mateo” contrast to the one in “Girl”? Dense Question -- The text/the reader/the world (could include other texts): When is it right to go against a parent's gender expectations as the character in “Girl” does--or doesn't? How should a mother determine when to insist on familial loyalty or when to let go as Lordes does in “Letter to El Mateo”? What makes the mother in “Letter to El Mateo” seem more (or less) admirable than mothers we see in other texts? QUESTIONING CIRCLES Reader Text/Reader Text Dense Questions Text/World Reader/World World based on Leila Christenbury's Questioning: A Path to Critical Thinking (15).