8th Grade
Non-Fiction
920L
Healing 'Brick City': A Newark Doctor Returns Home
Passage Summary:
A physician who overcame a difficult upbringing meditates on the nature of his career and the relationship between medicine and public service.
When and How to Pair:
After finishing the novella, have students read “Healing ‘Brick City’: A Newark Doctor Returns Home” and consider the idea of “feeling the responsibility to give back.” How are Esperanza’s feelings at the end of the novella — “I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out” — similar to Sampson Davis’ desire to give back to his hometown? How have both Davis and Esperanza’s lives in their hometowns shaped their perspectives on education? On giving back?