Half of a Yellow Sun

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

What is one word that describes a crucial aspect of your identity? What if this word was the only thing people knew about you? What other wonderful and important things would they not know about you? How important is it to know someone’s full story before making judgments about them?

Teaching Suggestion: After having students respond to this prompt independently, you can open it up to a small-group or whole-class discussion. Students can share their personal responses and/or respond to any of the paired resources below. These paired resources can provide a variety of answers to these questions to offer students more context and perspective. This discussion can lead to philosophical questions about the nature of being an individual and a human being. As the discussion broadens, consider asking students to define what makes humans human, what commonalities humans have, and what aspects may divide humans. This discussion can provide useful background knowledge and context for the larger discussion around Sectarian Identity Crises in the novel. Consider accessing or sharing these or similar resources with students to help inform this work.

• “Human Family” is a poem by Maya Angelou that addresses the differences between people around the world and reminds us that our similarities are more prominent than our differences.
• “What Makes Humans Human” is a nonfiction article by Michael Tomasello that provides an in-depth discussion of how education grants a more comprehensive worldview. 
• “Danger of a Single Story” is an 18-minute TED-Ed talk presented by Adichie and is a potent reminder that we should hear more of a person’s story before making a judgment.
• “A History of the Igbo People” is a 7-minute video that provides context and an introduction to the Igbo culture.

Short Activity

Work with a partner or small group to find an artifact (real or virtual), a poem, a summary of a novel, or other media that has shaped your impression of Africa. Be prepared to present your selection to the class and explain the impression it made on you.

Teaching Suggestion: This activity can be used to introduce the historical context of the setting of Nigeria and the political conflicts that led to the civil war, which is an important premise of the setting of the novel. It may be beneficial to facilitate a discussion regarding students impressions of Africa as a continent before delving into the more specific context of Nigeria. You may wish to draw attention to how common cultural and political divides are across the continent before presenting more direct instruction on the setting of the novel, the Igbo culture, and the theme of Sectarian Identity Crises. 

• “Nigeria’s Civil War Explained” is a short video by BBC news that briefly explains the history of Nigeria as a colonized country, the diversity of the country, the causes of the Nigerian Civil War, and how tensions from this conflict still continue today.
• “Life in Lagos: In Search of the African Middle Class” is a National Geographic article that provides photography and discusses the complex life found in Lagos.
• Images of Nigeria are pictures provided by ABC News that will help facilitate discussion.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

Consider how a diverse country like America has many different sects—cultural, religious, and political to name a few. How can this level of diversity be a benefit to an individual or a nation as a whole? On the other hand, how might it cause conflict?

Teaching Suggestion: To assist in digging deeper to answer the personal connection prompt and to connect to the sectarian conflicts and political crises that arise in the book, especially as it relates to Sectarian Identity Crises, it may be helpful to discuss American political sectarianism in a group reading of one or more of the following texts: “Why Political Sectarianism Is a Growing Threat to American Democracy,” a New York Times political memo published in April 2021, “Republicans and Democrats Hate the Other Side More than They Love Their Own, New Analysis Shows,” a New York University article published in 2020, or “Sectarianism in the Divided States of America,” an article by The Foreign Policy Centre published in 2022.

• The African Journal of History and Culture article “The Interface Between Igbo Traditional Religion and Christianity” might help students learn more about Igbo culture.

Differentiation Suggestion: English learners may benefit from creating a triple Venn diagram that compares American, Igbo, and their own cultures. Providing additional time to research Sectarian Identity Crises in their own culture or a variety of cultures could be helpful in analyzing comparisons for a deeper understanding.