The Reluctant Fundamentalist

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

1. Can you think of any novels, TV shows, or films that center around a Middle Eastern or, more specifically, Pakistani protagonist?

Teaching Suggestion: The Reluctant Fundamentalist encourages students to think about the influence of the United States on Middle Easterners, especially in the wake of 9/11. If students have trouble coming up with ideas, you may wish to name some examples, such as the TV show Ms. Marvel and the memoir I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai.

• Literary Quicksand has put together a list of seven award-winning books by Pakistani writers.

2. What do you know about 9/11?

Teaching Suggestion: Discussing students’ preconceived notions about 9/11 can help prepare them to understand how the event and America’s response to it affected people like Changez and others in America and around the world.

• The 9/11 Museum and Memorial has a set of interactive timelines laying out the events of September 11, 2011, the recovery at Ground Zero, and the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing.
• “How to Talk about 9/11 with A New Generation of Kids” on NPR focuses on how to discuss 9/11 with students who may not have been alive and/or remember the events of the day.

Personal Connection Prompt

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

America is often associated with ideas of freedom, liberty, opportunity, and justice. What does America represent to you? What do you think it represents to people from around the world? How might one’s location in the world influence how they perceive American life and culture?

Teaching Suggestion: To get students thinking about America and what it represents, you may wish to show them a series of images associated with American symbolism (e.g., the flag, the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty, etc.) and have them free-write words and phrases that come to mind. The Reluctant Fundamentalist complicates the idea of The American Dream and discusses Capitalism as a Form of Fundamentalism. As you prepare students to read this novel, help them to become aware of their own biases and assumptions.

Differentiation Suggestion: English learners and struggling writers could draw out their visions of the United States and use sentence frames and a word bank to compose one or two explanatory sentences.