A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

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. The book you are about to read uses investigative journalism as a stylistic tool that influences the structure and tone of the work. If you had to define the term investigative journalism, how would you define it? To help, examine these recent examples of investigative journalism: (1) Tampa Bay Times's exposé of toxic hazards inside a recycling plant, (2) CBC's investigation of Shein's use of toxic chemicals, and (3) Sky News's examination of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. What characteristics do these stories share, despite their wide range of subjects?

Teaching Suggestion: Even without much prior knowledge or preparation, students can make intelligent guesses about characteristics common to investigative journalism. Students may enjoy working in pairs to share their thoughts or discuss the articles, collaborating together to identify these characteristics. This work can help prepare students to consider the novel's theme of The Importance of Finding Out the Truth. As an extension, you may wish to have the class discuss the following questions: How can investigative journalism be beneficial to society and culture? How can it be detrimental? Resources like the ones below might further inform your work with students or provide students with additional resources:

• This article from the Global Investigative Journalism Network that examines the components of investigative journalism
• This Brookings summary that identifies key moments in the history of US investigative journalism
• This list of Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative reporting from 1985-2022

2. In the book you will be reading, some characters are shamed by social stigmas—figurative marks of disgrace from a particular circumstance or association. Media other than novels also attempt to highlight similar issues. In 2013, the children's television show Sesame Street introduced Alex, a Muppet character whose father is incarcerated, to the cast. Alex's character was created to help children viewers cope with the stigma of having a parent in jail. What kind of stereotyping and/or social stigma might children with incarcerated parents face? How can ensuring that this population of children is represented by characters in popular media be beneficial to viewers themselves and culture as a whole?

Teaching Suggestion: In anticipation of one of the book's themes, Public Shame of the Accused's Family, students may benefit from exploring and discussing the different ways incarceration, social stigma, and even racism within a community can cause suffering within a family unit. As an extension to the short-answer prompts above, consider encouraging a discussion of these issues amongst students, informed by resources like the ones below if desired.

• The Coping With Incarceration website from Sesame Street, offering resources, activities, and videos in support of the whole family
• This news article detailing the 2013 addition of the Alex character to the Sesame Street cast
• This journal article highlighting the negative effects of parent incarceration on children and proposing policies and programs to support those children

Personal Connection Prompt

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

At some point in your life, you will likely encounter a moral dilemma—a complex situation in which you must decide between two difficult options that challenge your ethics. Reflect upon the difficult decisions that you've had to make in the past. Can any of them be considered a moral dilemma? If so, how? What was the outcome? Whether you've experienced one before or not, explain how resolving a moral dilemma might help contribute to a person or character's identity development.

Teaching Suggestion: Encountering these concepts of moral dilemmas and identity development can help prepare students to engage with the novel's theme of The Search for Identity and potentially develop empathy for and/or connection with the character Pip, whose identity is revealed incrementally as she progresses through each successive ethical dilemma throughout the plot. Students may respond to the prompts above according to their level of comfort—whether in a whole-class, small-group, or paired discussion or in a free-write. Consider sharing these resources with students to help inform their discussions and reflections and/or to inform your own work with students and this novel:

• This entry in Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy on moral dilemmas, associated concepts, arguments, types, and additional resources
• This page from the National Association of Social Workers on the steps that are essential to ethical problem-solving
• This list of examples of ethical dilemmas for teenagers to read and think through

Differentiation Suggestion: If students are interested in further exploring and discussing ethical dilemmas, and to appeal to students' learning differences, consider viewing the following TED-Ed videos with students and holding a class discussion of the ethical dilemmas presented in each: (1) Ethical dilemma: Should we get rid of mosquitoes?, (2) Ethical dilemma: Would you lie?, and (3) Ethical dilemma: Who should you believe?. These videos may appeal most to students who are visual and auditory learners, and the content of the videos may be particularly intriguing to students who demonstrate naturalistic intelligence (video 1), interpersonal intelligence (video 2), or a general propensity for logic and reason (all videos; linguistic-verbal and logical-mathematical intelligences).

If you decide to facilitate a discussion with students after any/all of these videos, consider also challenging students to support their ideas with logic, identifying the possible origins of any ethical beliefs they share, and weighing and voicing all potential outcomes of their decisions.