103 pages • 3 hours read
Alicia D. WilliamsGenesis Begins Again
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Essay Topics
Genesis Begins Again is full of recurring symbols, including but not limited to hair, music, the list, and the brown paper bag. Choose one symbol and explore how it reflects Genesis’s struggle with her identity over the course of the novel.
Genesis’s father plays a major role in how Genesis views herself. Describe the positive and negative affect her father has on her life. Would you argue that her father has actually changed at the end of the novel? Why or why not?
What role do hairstyles play in the novel? Why does Genesis judge others’ hair when she first meets them? What role does hair play for women/girls of color?
A foil in literature is a character who contrasts with another character, typically the protagonist, in order to accentuate certain traits of the protagonist. In what ways does Troy act as a foil to Genesis?
What effect(s) do/does the talent show have on Genesis and her character development? Why is it so important to her? What does it represent to her?
Why do you think Williams chose to write the novel using Genesis’s first-person perspective? How does it affect how you experience the novel? How does it affect how you view Genesis?
Genesis believes that “beauty is everything” (154). She thinks, “being Black like me ain’t nothing to be proud of” (154). What does she mean by that statement? How do her beliefs about beauty change over the course of the novel?
In what ways does Farmington Hills differ from Detroit? How does Genesis being from Detroit affect how her classmates treat her?
When Mrs. Hill tells Genesis the story behind “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” Genesis says that “apparently no one told Mrs. Hill that we don’t talk about slavery anymore, because she goes on like she’s proud to know her ancestors were picking cotton” (67). How does Mrs. Hill’s ancestry differ from Genesis’s Grandma’s? How do their beliefs about their ancestry affect Genesis and how she views her family’s past? How she views herself?
