Highland Park High School English Department
Text Rationale for The Other Wes Moore
Updated 4/27/15
The Other Wes Moore
Title of Work
Wes Moore
Author
2010
Copyright date
Rationale (including age/ability appropriateness and how text fits into the course’s philosophy
and enduring understanding): Young people across the country have read Moore’s memoir.
Although the book was marketed for adults, it is well suited on a number of levels for young adult
readers. With little profanity, sexual content, or explicit violence or drug use, the book is both
accessible and appropriate by most high school standards. It also speaks to the experiences of young
adults and focuses on the childhood stories of both Wes Moores. In the epilogue, the author writes,
“When I finish my story, the question that comes up the most is the one that initiated this quest:
‘What made the difference?’ And the truth is that I don’t know” (179). This authorial stance implies
an approach to difficult questions that honors the uncertainty and continued reflection that the
structure of the memoir invites. The memoir begins with an overarching question about how two Wes
Moores from the same neighborhood could have such different life experiences; the reader follows
the two stories as they alternate; and, finally, the memoir invites the reader to return in the end to the
original question. Reading this memoir will not provide readers with an answer to the original
question but instead will help the reader better understand the nuanced and complex nature of the
social and cultural phenomena that evoke the question in the first place. In short, the structure of
The Other Wes Moore generates the kinds of questions that have the potential to engage adolescents
in democratic literacy engagement in the English classroom.
Summary: Two kids with the same name, living in the same city. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison
for felony murder. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.
In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student
who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four
young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The
police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was
named Wes Moore.
Wes just couldn’t shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared
much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt,
and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a
life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been
haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?
That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that has lasted for several years. Over
dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had a life not unlike his own:
Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless;
they’d hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police.
At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their
choices and the people in their lives would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.
Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to
moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a challenging and at times, hostile world.
Merit Awards and Recognition:
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2009: named to "40 Under 40 Rising Stars," Crain's New York Business
•
2010: starred review of The Other Wes Moore, Publishers Weekly
•
2010: recipient of the "Veterans Leadership Award," Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of
America
•
2011: named to Ebony Magazine's Annual Power 100 List
Benefit to Students: See above under rationale
Brief description of proposed classroom activities generated by text:
Study of indirect and direct characterization, round v. flat characters
Use of allusions in text
Figurative language such as simile, metaphor, personification
Rhetorical strategies such as parallelism, asyndeton, polysyndeton
Analyzing persuasive rhetoric
Writing persuasively
Use of poetry to complement texts – Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou
Theme connections
Writing about theme using textual evidence
List of the TEKS/STAAR/HPISD curricular objectives the proposed text supports
TEKS
(1) Reading/Vocabulary Development. Students understand new vocabulary and use it when
reading and writing. Students are expected to:
(E) use a dictionary, a glossary, or a thesaurus (printed or electronic) to determine or confirm
the meanings of words and phrases, including their connotations and denotations, and their
etymology.
(2) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Theme and Genre. Students analyze, make
inferences and draw conclusions about theme and genre in different cultural, historical, and
contemporary contexts and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. Students
are expected to:
(A) analyze how the genre of texts with similar themes shapes meaning;
(B) analyze the influence of mythic, classical and traditional literature on 20th and 21st
century literature;
(6) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Literary Nonfiction. Students understand, make
inferences and draw conclusions about the varied structural patterns and features of literary
nonfiction and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected to:
(A) analyze how literary essays interweave personal examples and ideas with factual
information to explain, present a perspective, or describe a situation or event.
(9) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Expository Text. Students analyze, make
inferences and draw conclusions about expository text and provide evidence from text to support
their understanding. Students are expected to:
(A ) summarize text and distinguish between a summary that captures the main ideas and
elements of a text and a critique that takes a position and expresses an opinion
(B) differentiate between opinions that are substantiated and unsubstantiated in the text;
(C) make subtle inferences and draw complex conclusions about the ideas in text and their
organizational patterns;
(15) Writing/Expository and Procedural Texts. Students write expository and procedural or workrelated texts to communicate ideas and information to specific audiences for specific purposes.
Students are expected to:
(A) write an analytical essay of sufficient length that includes:
(i) effective introductory and concluding paragraphs and a variety of sentence
structures;
(ii) rhetorical devices, and transitions between paragraphs;
(iii) a controlling idea or thesis;
(iv) an organizing structure appropriate to purpose, audience, and context; and
(B) write procedural or work-related documents (e.g., instructions, e-mails,
correspondence, memos, project plans) that include:
(i) organized and accurately conveyed information; and
(ii) reader-friendly formatting techniques;
(C) write an interpretative response to an expository or a literary text (e.g., essay or review)
that:
(i) extends beyond a summary and literal analysis;
(ii) addresses the writing skills for an analytical essay and provides evidence from
the text using embedded quotations; and
(iii) analyzes the aesthetic effects of an author's use of stylistic or rhetorical
devices; and
(D) produce a multimedia presentation (e.g., documentary, class newspaper, docudrama,
infomercial, visual or textual parodies, theatrical production) with graphics, images, and
sound that conveys a distinctive point of view and appeals to a specific audience.
Clarification of any potentially controversial segments and why the text remains a suitable
choice, despite being potentially controversial.
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Gang references
Drug references
Protocol for entering a prison to visit an inmate
Similar Works: Outcast United by Warren St. John, An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old
Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny by Laura Schroff
Submit this Text Rationale with an annotated copy of the text for Committee Consideration.