Teacher Guide

The Thing Around Your Neck Lesson Plan

Relationship to Other Books

Relevant works include any of Adichie's fiction, including Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and especially Americanah, which students will hear an excerpt of in the Day 4 activity, A Blog of Two Americas.

Things Fall Apart by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe is standard reading for many high school and college literature classes. Given that Adichie grew up in a house formerly occupied by Achebe and borrows names from many of his characters in her stories, any work by Achebe is relevant for comparison with Adichie's work.

It may be beneficial to briefly discuss Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad as a racially problematic text within the canon. The novel is mentioned in "Jumping Monkey...

Join Now to View Premium Content

GradeSaver provides access to 2368 study guide PDFs and quizzes, 11018 literature essays, 2792 sample college application essays, 926 lesson plans, and ad-free surfing in this premium content, “Members Only” section of the site! Membership includes a 10% discount on all editing orders.

Join Now

Already a member? Log in