Picture Perfect
Print this Page- Subject(s): Language Arts & Literature
- Region / Country: Central & Eastern Europe / Islamic State of Afghanistan
- Grade Level(s): 9–12
Overview
Students will use literature to explore cultural norms in another country and compare them with their own experiences.
Procedures
1. Ask students to do some research about Afghanistan in the late 1970s and Afghanistan today. How has the country changed? Encourage the students to keep this in mind as they read the story.
2. Have students read the story "Picture Perfect" until the line "And he told me I was finished."
3. Sumser says that "identification cards in a land with a 95 percent illiteracy rate are meaningless." Ask students why Sumser is getting an identification card. Are there things that you are required to do in your home community that sometimes seem senseless?
4. How does the author use anticipation to move his story forward?
5. Without reading the rest of the story, what is your reaction to what just happened to the author? Why were his friends laughing?
6. Ask students to finish the story.
7. How do John Sumser and his friends react when they receive the identification cards? What lesson did the author learn?
8. Ask students to brainstorm ways in which American society could benefit from this lesson.