Title: Barbara Kingsolver: Stone Soup

Contents

1. Before you begin reading this essay, write at least five sentences that occur to you as you think of these two phrases: “broken home” and “children of divorce.”

2. Kingsolver’s essay was written in the mid-1990s. Does it still seem accurate that if you are a blended family or a family living with a divorced parent, “it’s probably been suggested to you in a hundred ways that yours isn’t exactly a real family? Do you think parents who divorce are selfishly putting “personal happiness ahead of family integrity”? Whatever your family situation, do you think our view have shifted much in 10 years? 

3. Part of this essay details some of the historic conceptions of family. What surprises you about this information? Does any of it help you understand your own family experience?

Number of words: 506 (1.6 Pages)